Winter Wrap-Up: Brits bag best ever cross-country ski team sprint finish

Beijing 2022 19 Dec 21

Andrew Young and James Clugnet combined to record Britain’s best ever cross-country ski team sprint result after finishing sixth in Dresden.

The duo clocked a time of 14:23.18, finishing 3.84 seconds behind winning Norwegian pair Thomas Helland Larsen and Even Northug.

The British pair, who will be joined in Beijing by Andrew Musgrave, came second in their semi-final in 14:23.88, 0.44 seconds behind Russian duo Alexander Bolshunov and Gleb Retivykh.

And they then managed to shave seven hundredths off that time in the final to set new ground for a British team in the event before focus now switches to the Tour de Ski which gets underway after Christmas.

Fresh from their silver in Winterberg, Brad Hall and Britain’s 4-man bobsleigh team delivered another top ten finish in Altenberg.

Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Nick Gleeson and Greg Cackett took seventh after their sled came home in 1:49.74.

The British quad finished 0.86 seconds off the pace set by world champion Francesco Friedrich’s German team who are still unbeaten in the World Cup. 

Hall and his team had finished just 0.30 seconds behind the Germans last week when they made up the top two.

The sliders will now not return to action until after Christmas with Hall’s 4-man team sitting fifth in the overall rankings.

Also in Altenberg, Matt Weston took seventh in the men’s skeleton after clocking 1:54.82, a result that leaves him eighth on the overall World Cup ladder after a sensational gold medal in Innsbruck back in November.

Meanwhile, snowboard cross world champion and overall World Cup leader Charlotte Bankes had to settle for ninth place in Cervinia.

Bankes took gold last week in Montafon and showed her pedigree by qualifying for the finals in first place in Italy.

READ MORE: The story of Bankes's first World Cup win

And although she was unable to make it into the big final, Bankes retained her lead at the top of the overall standings from this week’s winner on home soil, Michela Moioli.

Meanwhile Ollie Davies made the ski cross World Cup finals for the first time this season, taking 31st place on Sunday in Innichen. 

Skier Makayla Gerken Schofield also made a final with a 12th-place finish in the moguls at Alpe d’Huez.

There was bad news for Team GB’s PyeongChang 2018 slopestyle bronze medallist Izzy Atkin who broke her pelvis, but the freestyle skier is still upbeat about her chances of appearing at Beijing 2022.

Atkin was injured at the Dew Tour event at Copper Mountain but having already met the qualifying criteria, she is hopeful of making it to China.

On Instagram, alongside a photo of her in her hospital bed, she wrote: “I managed to cap off a fun week of skiing the amazing @dewtour course with a broken pelvis. 

“There’s a long and painful recovery ahead but I’m already up and walking (with an old lady walker lol) and keeping hope alive for the Olympics in February :) Thanks for all the kind words.”

Atkin’s bronze nearly four years ago made her the first British skier to win an Olympic medal.