Britain celebrates 'Slippery Sunday' double gold

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 16 : It did not quite match the Super Saturday high point of the London 2012 Olympics but Britain's two thrilling comeback golds won on "Slippery Sunday" will go down as the greatest day in the country's long and generally underwhelming Winter Games history.

Fourteen years ago Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah claimed athletics golds within 45 minutes at the London Olympic Stadium in front of 80,000 screaming fans with another 20 million in the UK roaring them on via TV.

Sunday's action was watched live by a few hundred - mostly friends and family of the athletes - and a relatively tiny TV audience, but those who tuned in were treated to incredible drama.

Britain's record target of four to eight medals had looked ambitious during an opening week that produced a series of frustrating fourth places, but Matt Weston got things moving with a fantastic victory in the skeleton men's singles on Friday when he set four successive track records.

If that was a procession, Sunday's action was anything but as Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes won the Snowboard Cross Mixed Team gold as Bankes surged into the lead moments from the line.

It was Britain's first Olympic gold medal on snow in more than a century of trying and came after bronzes in 2014 and 2018.

Hours later things got even better when Weston produced an incredible run to haul Britain from fourth to first and take gold alongside Tabby Stoecker in the first running of skeleton's Mixed Team event.

It was the first time the country had won two golds in a day and made it the first Winter Olympics where they have collected three. Weston is also the only Briton to have taken two medals at the same Winter Games

It cemented Britain's status as the