Skeleton-Triple 'firsts' and helmet controversy are 2026 legacy

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 16 : The Olympic skeleton programme produced three historic racing moments as Matt Weston became the first British man to win gold, women’s champion Laura Flock claimed a first female medal for Austria and Britain - with Weston - won the first team relay.

It also provided one of the most controversial stories of the Games as Ukraine's Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified for refusing to not race in his "helmet of remembrance".

Weston’s singles victory made Britain the most successful nation in the sport at the Olympics – some achievement for a country without a sliding track – but most of the previous medals, including three golds, had come on the women’s side.

He arrived in Cortina as the three-times World Cup champion expected and expecting to shift that balance sheet, and he did not disappoint.

Weston said he had taken important lessons from 2022 in Beijing, where he finished 15th in the only Games that Britain has failed to medal at, and by the time he lined up at the start this year he had learned to embrace the favourite’s tag.

The pressure had been ramped up even more by Britain’s failure to find a medal anywhere else in the Games before his race, but he delivered a superlative performance, setting the track record four times in a row.

In one of the quotes of the Games, Weston said that if it looks as if he is doing nothing then things were going well, and that was exactly the image he projected with a series of silky-smooth runs where there was barely a twitch from any part of his body – all at 80mph.

That serenity disappeared in an instant as he climbed off his sled and collapsed to the floor in relief. "I just saw green and I just started crying straight away," he said. "The emotions