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Five Britons to watch out for at Sochi 2014


Five British athletes who have the potential to win a medal at next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi


Guardian Sport staff

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 February 2013 14.56 GMT


James-Woods-the-British-s-008.jpg

The British slopestyle skier James Woods, after his third place at the Winter X Games in Aspen last month. Photograph: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images



Elise Christie


Age 22 Event Short-track speed skating


Elise Christie, who comes from Livingston in Scotland, is ranked No1 in the world in the 1,000m and became Great Britain's first short-track speed skating World Cup champion at the distance in February. Now based in Nottingham, Christie will target the world championships in March as a stepping stone towards Sochi. "I really believe I can make the podium," she says.


James Woods


Age 20 Event Slopestyle skiing


Britain's best chance for a medal on the slopes. Recently won two World Cup Slopestyle events and an X Games Slopestyle bronze, making him the most successful British snowsports athlete to date, and is the current world No1. In slopestyle skiing, which will make its debut at the Winter Games in 2014, the goal is to perform the most difficult tricks instead of doing one trick repeatedly.


Lizzy Yarnold


Age 24 Event Skeleton bob


Yarnold, seen as the heir-apparent to Amy Williams, who won gold in Vancouver in 2010, was disappointed to finish fourth by 0.13sec in the 2013 world championships in St Moritz. Yarnold, who won world championship bronze and became the junior world champion last year, is confident that she can win gold in the senior event in Sochi.


Shelley Rudman


Age 31 Event Skeleton bob


On 31 January, Rudman became the first British woman to win gold at a senior world championships in the skeleton bob. The overall 2012 World Cup Champion has had another good season with a famous World Cup victory in Winterberg, Germany, where she smashed the track record. Having won silver at the Olympics in 2006, Rudman will be hoping her world championship success can help her back on to the podium in Sochi after disappointing in Vancouver when going to Canada as won of the medal favourites.


Eve Muirhead


Age 22 Event Curling


Muirhead was 2011 European champion as skip of an all-Scottish British team. Muirhead is a four-times world junior champion and her team, which also comprises Anna Sloan, Claire Hamilton and Vicki Adams, won European gold in 2011. They need to win the Scottish championships in February this year to be selected to compete at the worlds in Latvia at the end of March. The team are currently 7th in the world rankings.


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MOST COMPETITIVE WINTER TEAM GB EVER HEADING FOR SOCHI 2014 OLYMPICS


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Andy HuntFebruary 7, 2013 08:06 am


In exactly one year Team GB will once again be marching proudly in to a stadium for an Olympic Opening Ceremony. This time it will be in Russia for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.


How many athletes do we think will be travelling to Sochi? Based on what we know today and have seen so far this winter season, Team GB is likely to be comprised of approximately 50 athletes. The first athletes have already started hitting the qualification criteria with the last possible opportunities to qualify on 19 January 2014. Selection to Team GB could start as early as April of this year and run until January next year.


For the Sochi 2014 Games, we believe this could be the most competitive winter Team GB yet. We have some good medal contenders across a number of sports, disciplines and events. What we have to keep in mind though, is that many winter sports are highly unpredictable – more so than summer sports - in the sense that it can easily go either way. One second you are in a medal winning position, next you can be down and out of contention. That is certainly part of the excitement and thrill of watching these sports and events. They are fast, they are nail biting and they are unpredictable.


So who are Team GB’s Sochi 2014 hopefuls? Since her Olympic debut in Vancouver speed skater Elise Christie is taking the World Cup circuit by storm and is now ranked number one in the world for 1000m and only last weekend became the first GB Speed-Skater to become a World Cup Series Champion at the official test event in Sochi. James Woods is currently leading the ski slopestyle World Cup standings having won two out of two World Cups/Olympic Qualifiers so far this season. Billy Morgan and Jenny Jones made their mark in the recent World Snowboard Slopestyle Championships in Canada with a 4th and 6th place finish respectively.


Last week Shelley Rudman became the first British female to be crowned skeleton World Champion. Shelley, a two time Olympian with a silver medal from the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics, was also the 2012 overall world cup skeleton champion. Lizzy Yarnold won silver at the World Cup in Park City earlier this season and finished 4th just 0.13 shy of a podium place at the 2013 skeleton World Champs. The men’s curling team is currently the second best in the world and the women are ranked 7th but came away with a silver medal at the 2012 European Championships. In the four man bobsleigh, Olympian John Jackson is currently ranked 7th in the world, with snowboarder Zoe Gillings, who made her Olympic debut in Turin 2006, ranked 8th in the world. Cross country skier and Olympian Andrew Musgrave has had a promising season so far and he continues his good form following his 9th place finish in the Tour de Ski sprint, in a field that included the powerhouses of Norway, Sweden and Germany. Our ice dancers Penny Coobes and Nick Buckland finished a creditable 5th in the recent European Figure Skating Championships in Croatia.


The GB ice hockey team has the chance to qualify for Sochi if they win the Olympic Qualification Tournament that takes place 7-10 February in Latvia. This would be the first time in over 60 years that Team GB would have an ice hockey team at the Olympic Winter Games – the last appearance was in 1948.


The Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games project is a colossal one: more than 800 venues are being built for the Games. A new railway, three new highways and eight new road junctions are also being built. The main route between the coast and the mountain cluster is 47 kilometers long, with 30km of them underground. But the infrastructure won’t be the only new thing in Sochi. We will also see events which will be part of the Winter Olympics for the first time: men’s and women’s ski halfpipe, women’s ski jumping, biathlon mixed relay, figure skating team event and luge team relay. Several of our athletes have already competed at the venues when taking part in the Test Events which Sochi 2014 has put on and the feedback has been good.


The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics will be the first winter Games to have an Olympic Park. In the past only summer Olympics have had this feature. The Park will be able to accommodate approximately 70,000 people and includes a plaza at which all athletes will receive their medals. This will also be the first time the winter Games are being held in Russia, which is remarkable given the tradition of Olympic success and support for winter sport in Russia.


The Sochi venue concept is compact: at the last two Winter Olympics, it took hours to get from the venues based in the city to the mountains. In Sochi, travelling from the costal cluster – where the Olympic Park will host curling, short track, figure and speed skating, ice hockey and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies – to the mountain cluster will take less than 30 minutes on the new railway. The mountain cluster will include biathlon and ski complexes, a bobsleigh track, a ski center, a ski jump complex, as well as a (snowboard) park and freestyle center. The Park concept and the proximity of the mountains at these Winter Games means that spectators and athletes, once they have finished competing, will be able to consume and enjoy more sport with less travel time between venues.


At the British Olympic Association we live by the mantra “Better Never Stops”. This is why we will capitalise on all of our learning’s from the London 2012 Olympics and Vancouver 2010 to leave no stone unturned to make sure Team GB athletes have the resources and support they need to perform to the very best of their ability at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.


Andy Hunt

British Olympic Association Chief Executive


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WOODS MAKING THE RIGHT NOISES AHEAD OF SOCHI 2014 OLYMPICS


February 12, 2013 10:40 am


Sochi 2014 Team GB hopeful


James Woods admits freestyle ski slopestyle’s inclusion onto the Olympic programme has altered the discipline – and at the rate he is going he may have to get used to further change.


The 21-year-old is rapidly putting himself into a position not experienced by too many British winter athletes as with less than a year to go until Sochi 2014 he is a realistic gold-medal hope.


Woods’ performances in this season’s World Cup are the cause for such optimism with victories at the opening round in Argentina in September and second in Copper Mountain last month.


Those two wins were just Woods’ second and third starts in slopestyle on the World Cup circuit, his debut coming in March 2012 in Mammoth where he finished eighth.


Woods’ actual World Cup debut came in the halfpipe discipline days before his 16th birthday in Les Contamines, where he was 37th while his World Championship bow was in Park City in 2011.


And, despite a tenth at the latest World Cup round in Silvaplana, Woods is the champion elect as he leads the discipline standings by 86 points with round four in Sochi cancelled.


That was meant to be the official Olympic test event however due to a lack of snow in the Russian venue it will no longer take place with one round left and a maximum of 100 points on offer.


That will come in Sierra Nevada on March 23 two weeks after the World Championships while away from such circuits and Woods is also fast making a name for himself.


He won bronze at the Winter X Games in Aspen last month after topping the qualification round with the IOC voting in 2011 to add ski and snowboard slopestyle to the Games programme.


Britain has never officially won a skiing medal at the Winter Olympics while Amy Williams claimed the nation’s first individual gold for 30 years when she won the women’s skeleton at Vancouver 2010.


She openly admits that she didn’t expect the furore that came with her triumph and, if Woods follows suit in Sochi, he will undoubtedly get the same with change something he’s getting used to.


“It was a bit of a lad’s tour, living the dream,” he told the Daily Telegraph last month. “It has been a bit of a shock because the Olympics has made it more competitive, suddenly there are skiers who you have never seen before.


“But I want to keep going and become so accustomed to competing that the Olympics will just be another day in the office.

“It is just fun and a lifestyle sport. You are free to do whatever you want and there are no rules, no one is telling you what to do or what you cannot do.


“It is all about self-expression and being rewarded for being completely different to everyone else. The focus for me is to work very hard on the style aspect and to make it all look so easy.


“When I get to a course, I look how I can bring the tricks I like into this situation. All of the skiers want diversity of the course. The last thing we want is a rule book on how to win a slopestyle.”


© Sportsbeat 2013


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MCNEILL TARGETS SOCHI 2014 OLYMPICS AFTER JUNIOR SUCCESSES


February 13, 2013 10:30 am


Sochi 2014 Team GB hopeful


Mica McNeill’s aim for the season was a Junior World Championship medal and, with that long been achieved, her focus on the Sochi 2014 Olympics has only grown deeper.


McNeill was just 15 when in 2009 she took up bobsleigh, inspired after meeting fellow Brit Nicola Minichiello who won the senior world title aged 30 that same year.


Minichiello is an example that the best female bobsleigh pilots don’t peak until their late 20s, or even 30s in her case, with British No.1 Paula Walker 27 this coming April.


However age has never been a barrier for McNeill and, with her taking up of the sport coinciding with the formation of the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012, she had an opportunity to impress.


Despite a three-year wait, she finished no lower than fourth in the four European qualification events for the Youth Olympics before winning silver in Igls with brakewoman turned long jumper Jazmin Sawyers.


A year later and McNeill has added to her medal haul by winning junior world bronze, this time with Nikki McSweeney, on the same ice in Austria and made her World Cup and World Championship debuts.


McNeill, now 19, finished 20th on her World Cup bow in Koenigssee before matching that finish two weeks later at her first senior World Championships in St Moritz.


Her aim since claiming world junior bronze has been on making her Olympic debut at Sochi 2014 with qualification based on world rankings as of January 20 next year.


Walker is almost assured of a place however only a maximum of two nations are allowed to field three crews, Germany a certainty to be one of them, and only a maximum of four nations are allowed to field two.


The latter would appear most likely achievable for Britain with three German crews and three American crews in the top ten of the current FIBT rankings before you get to Walker in 11th.


McNeill is the second best Brit in 20th however she faces competition from Victoria Olaoye, who is 21st to her 23rd in the World Cup rankings albeit she has competed at one more round.


Both are determined to reach Sochi 2014 and McNeill, after winning world junior bronze, said: “That's the goal [the Olympics] and is what any athlete aims for. It's got to be the target and hopefully I can achieve it.


"Winning world junior bronze still hasn't really sunk in. It was the perfect Christmas present and it was just a fantastic achievement to get bronze against what are some of the best teams in the world.


"We were up against the US, Germany, Austria, some of the top juniors, so when we crossed the line and saw we had got the bronze we just thought 'wow'. It was brilliant and we were over the moon.


"I had a bit of a repetitive strain injury in my Achilles from all the pushing off on the starts and had to have an injection which put me out for two weeks so I was lucky to be selected really.”


© Sportsbeat 2013


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LUGER ROSEN FULL OF BELIEF AHEAD OF SOCHI 2014 OLYMPICS


AJRosen.jpg


February 14, 2013 11:09 am


Almost four years ago luger Adam ‘AJ’ Rosen was told by doctors that he would be lucky to walk again after a crash while training on the 2010 Winter Olympic track in Whistler.


However, having overcome the dislocated hip suffered to compete at Vancouver 2010 and continually afterwards, Rosen is determined to make his third Olympics in Sochi his best yet.


Rosen finished 16th on his Olympic debut at Turin 2006, three years after first appearing for Britain, before battling back from his crash to match it at the next Games in Canada.


In a sport where Germany currently dominate every luge discipline, Rosen might not have been near the podium but he had his own agonising near-miss on both occasions.


For 16th is just one place shy of the best finish ever achieved by a British luger with Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson claiming 15th at the Lake Placid Games in 1980.


The 28-year-old was none other than 15th going into the fourth and final run at the Whistler Sliding Centre only to drop down a place to 16th after being the 19th quickest.


A finish of higher than 15th at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi would certainly make Rosen Britain’s outright best ever luger having achieved the nation’s best World Cup finish in 2009.


Rosen surpassed the best effort of 13th from Nick Ovett, brother of track and field 800m Olympic gold medallist Steve, by finishing sixth at the penultimate World Cup of the 2008-2009 season in Calgary.


This season has seen Rosen claim a best of 23rd on the World Cup circuit while the same position at the World Championships back in Whistler marked his best at the event.


And, with one more World Cup leg left this season, that also the Olympic test event in Sochi, Rosen will be hoping to build on his feeling that next year’s Games can be his best yet.


“The one thing that is really driving me towards Sochi is the belief that I can really do well at these Olympics,” said Rosen before the start of the season.


“I’m really trying to push ahead and see what I can do with the proper training equipment. It does get very tough and if I didn’t have this belief it would be easy to give up. But I have made too many sacrifices to do that now.


“I dislocated my hip and tore four ligaments in October prior to Vancouver, and the doctor said I’d be lucky to be walking again by the time the Olympics came round, so although I didn’t do as well as I hoped, to actually be there competing was an achievement.


“For Sochi, I’m hoping that everything will be in place to give me the best possible opportunity to succeed. I don’t think I would be happy with myself four years down the line if I didn’t give it my all. I do not want to leave this sport with any regrets.”


© Sportsbeat 2013


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  • 3 weeks later...
Sochi one year to go: Britain targets 'greatest' Winter Olympics

Great Britain basked in the glory of a tremendously successful London 2012, winning a total of 65 medals, including 29 golds, as the nation was whipped into a supporting frenzy.

And in a year's time, Team GB's snow and ice athletes could also be on for a record-breaking Winter Olympics.

Britain's most successful Winter Games was in 1924 when they won four medals - gold in curling, silver in bobsleigh and bronze in figure skating and ice hockey.

But in Sochi, Russia, could GB rewrite the record books?

Continue reading the main story

After London 2012 there is even more of a buzz about the Olympics and the desire to compete in Russia is huge

Dave EdwardsSki and Snowboard chief executive

Short-track speed skater Elise Christie certainly thinks so. She is Britain's first World Cup champion at 1,000m and has been on the podium in every race at that distance this season.

She's not alone, as Britain also boasts a world champion skeleton slider in Shelley Rudman, a double World Cup gold medallist and X Games bronze medallist in freestyle skier James Woods and a number of other athletes with genuine podium potential.

So there is real cause for optimism that Britain can return with more than the one solitary medal they won in Vancouver in 2010, albeit a gold fromAmy Williams in the skeleton.

"I do think this is going to be the most successful Winter Olympics ever for Britain," Christie told BBC Sport. "Watching people like Amy Williams influences people, you realise you can do it.

"Now there are more British people [doing well in winter sports] and that is such a good thing to be part of. Hopefully it will all work out in Sochi."

Britain have only won 22 medals in their Winter Olympic history, but when you consider the lack of natural resources, facilities and limited funding, any medal is a fantastic achievement.

UK Sport has more than doubled the funding from the £5.8m for the Vancouver cycle to £13m for the Sochi campaign, whereas summer-sport counterparts will have £276m invested in them on the road to Rio 2016.

To mark one year until the 2014 Winter Olympics, BBC Sport looks at where the medals could be won.

BOBSLEIGH

Funding to Sochi: £3,209,450

Previous Olympic success: Gold: 1964 [two-man], Silver: 1924 [four-man], Bronze: 1936 and 1998 [four-man]

Put simply, Vancouver 2010 was a disappointing Games for the four-time Olympic medal-winning bobsleigh team.

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Pickering swaps athletics for bobsleigh

Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke, who were world champions the previous year, failed to finish, as did the men's two-man team.

The men's four were 17th and the GBR 2 team came 11th.

Results since have demonstrated an improvement, and in 2012 Mica McNeill and Jazmin Sawyers claimed an historic Youth Olympic silver in Innsbruck, Austria.

Paula Walker and Gillian Cooke have been consistently in the World Cup top 10 and the men's four-man finished an impressive, yet agonising, 0.07 seconds from the podium in a fifth-place finish at this year's World Championships in Switzerland.

Continue reading the main story

I think we have the potential to win a medal in Sochi

Gary AndersonGB Bobsleigh

There is also hope that the addition of former British Olympic sprinter Craig Pickering can boost the men's two-man prospects.

"My objective was to create a sustainable programme that would ensure success at major championships," performance director Gary Anderson told BBC Sport.

"Modern bobsleigh requires a fast, explosive start and a recruitment drive to bring in top-class athletes has meant we are now amongst the fastest starters in the world.

"In the past three years we have won titles and medals at World Junior, Youth Olympics, Europa Cup, Americas Cup and have registered top-five results in the World Cup."

CURLING

Funding to Sochi: £2,055,100

Previous Olympic success: Gold: 1924 [men] and 2002 [women]

It is the sport perhaps best-remembered among British fans for an epic match against the Canadians in 2002 which went long into the night in the UK, before Rhona Martin led her side to Olympic gold against Switzerland.

In 2010, the women's team were among the medal favourites but failed to progress from the group phase. Skipper Eve Muirhead says the team is now progressing well ahead of Sochi.

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Eve Muirhead's video profile

"We got silver at the European Championships and, even though last season we got gold, I'd say we're a lot better team this year," said Muirhead.

"In the tour events we've had a good season, we've got the Scottish Championships and we have to win that to qualify for the World Championships.

"That's a very important event, because I'd like to think that - were we to win and get our selection for the Worlds - that would put us one step closer to the Olympics."

GB winter sport performance director Mike Hay said: "The women's team have been on the world and European podiums the last couple of years.

"The men's team have been world silver medallists these last two years but I have to say they haven't shown good form this season."

SHORT-TRACK SPEED SKATING

Funding to Sochi: £2,953,400

Previous Olympic success: Bronze: Nicky Gooch [1994] 500m

No British athlete has ever dominated the world of short-track speed-skating quite like Elise Christie has this season.

With one race remaining she has already secured the 1,000m World Cup title after her seventh podium finish in the Winter Olympic arena in Sochi last weekend.

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Christie teaches Williams to speed skate

Britain won four medals at the European Championships in Malmo, and the squad has recorded a number of top-eight finishes in World Cup races.

The team's next challenge will be the World Championships in Debrecen in Hungary from March 8-10.

Performance director Stuart Horsepool said: "The performances we had in Sochi have been the best we've had all year, and to be getting these results at the test event for the Olympic venues is a fantastic place to do it.

"Because the team have had good results here they now have good feelings and positive emotions linked to the venues here in Sochi, which is very important psychologically ahead of next year's Games. We are very much looking forward to coming back here for the Olympics."

SKELETON

Funding to Sochi: £2,055,100

Previous Olympic success: Gold: Amy Williams [2010], Silver: Shelley Rudman [2006], Bronze: David Carnegie [1928], John Crammond [1948], Alex Coomber [2002]

Skeleton has been Great Britain's most successful Winter Olympic sport in recent Games.

Four years prior to Amy Williams' 2010 Vancouver gold, Shelley Rudmanclaimed silver in Turin, Italy and her victory at last week's World Championships in St Moritz, Switzerland, coupled with the overall World Cup title last season, demonstrates her continued podium potential.

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Rudman wins 2013 World

She is not alone though. Lizzy Yarnold, 24, came through the British selection trials ranked number one and the 2012 Junior World Champion has consistently challenged for World Cup medals since making the step up to senior competition last season.

"We have a really good group of athletes who respect one another, so we travel as a team but race individually, which is quite unique," Rudman told BBC Sport.

"After winning [at the Worlds], I have to go back to the drawing board now and get things right for the big one.

"We have a test on the Sochi sliding track coming up next week, but if I am clear of injuries and fit it would be a privilege to qualify for a third Games."

Her partner Kristan Bromley, who won the men's world title in 2008,and Ed Smith have so far failed to challenge the podium places this season but will be expected to qualify for Sochi.

SKI AND SNOWBOARD

Funding to Sochi: £0 for alpine, £584,300 for freestyle skiing and snowboarding [to be revised by UK Sport in March 2013]

Previous Olympic success: No medals (Alain Baxter's "bronze" in the 2002 slalom was rescinded for failing a drugs test)

Great Britain has never won an Olympic medal on snow, but that could be rectified in Sochi.

Slopestyle will be making its Winter Olympic debut and Britain just happens to have some fantastically talented freestyle skiers and snowboarders.

James Woods has claimed two historic World Cup titles in the past 12 months and added X Games bronze to his collection last month in Aspen, Colorado.

There are also hopes that snowboarding London Freeze winner Billy Morgan and rising star Aimee Fuller could come into contention, while experienced pair Jenny Jones and two-time Olympian Zoe Gillings will continue to push for finals places in elite events.

GB freestyle skiing head coach Pat Sharples has boldly predicted they could win up to three medals, and the sport's chief executive Dave Edwards agrees there is strong potential in the team.

"We have had some of the country's best results in the last year and there is a realistic chance of getting an athlete on the podium," he said.

"We are continuingly looking for support financially to try to help boost the backing we can offer athletes, but we are all in a positive mood and are feeling confident with a year to go until the Games."

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Sochi 2014 Winter Games: One year to go until Paralympics


7 March 2013

Last updated at 06:18 GMT


By Elizabeth Hudson and Nick Hope

BBC Paralympic sports reporters


Following the euphoria created by London 2012, skier Kelly Gallagher believes the British alpine team can finally end their search for a first-ever Winter Paralympic gold medal in Sochi, Russia, next year.


Despite competing in every Games since the Winter Paralympics inception in Sweden in 1976, GB have never topped the podium - winning six silver and 15 bronze medals.


Gallagher, who is visually impaired, finished fourth in the giant slalom at the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics, but won four medals at the recent World Championships in Spain - fuelling her confidence of success at the Sochi Games, which run from 7-16 March 2014.


"I know I can get that gold," said the 27-year-old from Northern Ireland.


"I went to the Paralympics last summer and all of those British and Irish medallists were really inspiring.


"I think with the amount of support around me and Charlotte [Evans] - who is the right guide for me - that we can get it right and win. We just need to keep training hard, focus and keep smart on the snow."


Great Britain hope to have participants in three of the five sports at the Games.


The wheelchair curlers have already secured their Sochi place and the skiers will be named in early 2014, while the sledge hockey team head into a tough tournament in Japan next week knowing a top-three finish will see them move closer to achieving their qualification dream.


"You are seeing World Championship performances from the curlers and the skiers which gives grounds for optimism for medals in Sochi," British Paralympic Association chief executive Tim Hollingsworth told BBC Sport.


"But I don't want to set expectations too high. We are talking about a team probably in the region of 11 or 12 athletes and when you think of the 11 medals a day we won in London we won't be anywhere near that.


"Personal bests from the athletes on the day are the best we should expect and for some athletes, that may well result in a medal."


To mark one year to go until the Games, BBC Sport looks at the British team's chances of success.


Alpine skiing


UK Sport funding to Sochi: £268,000


Paralympic success : 1984 - one bronze medal; 1992 - one silver, four bronze medals; 1994 - four bronze medals.


Despite a belief that World Cup medallist Sean Rose could push for the podium the greatest achievement of the seven-strong British alpine skiing team at the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics was Gallagher's fourth-placed finish.


Come Sochi, though, the GB squad will be considered amongst those with genuine multiple medal prospects. In addition to Gallagher, who has won six World Championship medals since the last Paralympics, the squad is also likely to boast rising star Jade Etherington.


Despite struggling to find a regular guide, the 21-year-old went into the 2013 Worlds boasting an impressive record of having won 26 medals from 28 races and went on to claim Super-G bronze in Spain.


"These results are great for British skiing," Gallagher told BBC Sport.


"It hasn't been easy for Jade, but we're all working really hard with the goal of next year's Winter Paralympics in mind."


A potential high-profile recruit for the Sochi squad could come in the form of Sir Paul McCartney's former wife Heather Mills who, having joined the development team in late 2010, has made steady progress up the world rankings.


The 44-year-old former model, who lost part of her left leg in a 1993 road accident, is yet to attain enough ranking points to compete at elite World Cup events so will need to deliver consistent medal-winning performances in second-tier competitions to boost her prospects.


Anna Turney, meanwhile, will be seeking a Russian renaissance next year after finishing sixth in Vancouver.


The sitting skier joins Gallagher and Etherington in a small squad out at the Paralympic test event in Sochi this week.


Because of funding shortfalls in the sport, it is a trip which only became possible thanks to a grant from the Peter Harrison Foundation.


"It's absolutely massive for the athletes," stated Disability Snowsport chief executive Fiona Young.


"With a year to go until the Games the athletes and staff need to be able to see what the venue will be like and also prepare for any challenges or difficulties they may have to face."


Wheelchair curling


UK Sport funding to Sochi: £350,200

Paralympic success: Silver: 2006


The GB wheelchair curlers, made up of Scotland players, claimed silver when the sport made its debut in Turin in 2006 to become Britain's first medallists at a winter Games since Lillehammer in 1994.


However, four years later in Vancouver they finished seventh in the pool stages and failed to advance to the medal matches.


Since then, under new coach Tony Zummack, the Scots finished runners-up at the 2011 World Championship and were sixth at the recent Worlds at the Ice Cube Centre in Sochi, which will host the Olympic and Paralympic curling events.


Wheelchair curling teams are made up of four players with the stones the same size and weight as the Olympic stones. The main difference between the two versions of the sport is that in the Paralympic event there is no sweeping.


Major championship results over the past three years were sufficient to qualify the Scots for Sochi, where they will face nine other teams - hosts Russia, defending World and Paralympic champions Canada, China, Sweden, USA, South Korea, Slovakia, Norway and Finland.


"Over the next 12 months, we have to stay focused on getting better every day," Zummack told BBC Sport. "I know it is a cliche but we have to do the small things right so that we build the consistency and the expectation and intensity levels.


"We also want to get as many games as possible and have as many opportunities to play on the ice as a group as we can, as the standard of play is rising all the time.


"Seeing how the London Games were embraced has to bleed into the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The difference is that in Russia, we are going to a country where you don't know how they are going to support it."


Sledge hockey


UK Sport funding to Sochi: None

Paralympic success: None


Great Britain's last sledge hockey appearance at a Winter Paralympics came in Turin in 2006 where they finished seventh out of eight teams.


The sport is similar to ice hockey with the athletes using specially designed sledges fitted with two blades to propel themselves across the ice. They also have two playing sticks which are used for pushing and to control and shoot the puck.

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The GB team failed to reach Vancouver and now, after a period of rebuilding, take part in the World Championships Pool B in Nagano, Japan, which starts on Monday 11 March, knowing a third-placed finish will see them advance to a further tournament later this year where they could qualify for Sochi.


In Pool B they will face Japan, who have been relegated from Pool A, as well as Poland. The other group features Germany, Estonia and Slovakia.


Later this year the top three finishers will face the bottom three finishers from the Pool A event, which also takes place this month, with the top three teams to qualify for Sochi.


Among the GB players will be Steve Thomas. One of four survivors from the Turin team, he is also one of a select group of athletes to have competed at both the summer and winter Games. Thomas represented GB in sailing in Athens (2004), Beijing (2008) and London.


"If we don't qualify we will reassess and go again," admitted coach Andy Linton. "Our aim is to qualify for Pyeongchang in 2018 so to qualify for Sochi would be a real bonus for us.


"Our time on the ice has been limited because not only are our players all working full-time and having to travel to training - sometimes up to three hours - but we are also trying to get our time on ice around the rink's ice hockey commitments so we are sometimes training from 11pm until 1am and there are a lot of tired guys out there.


"Because we don't get UK Sport funding, we have to prove ourselves with the results we get. If we want to go to tournaments we do it ourselves. There is a great buy-in from the team and they are really motivated."


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