Winter Olympics: Short-track disappointment for Team GB on day one

Farrell Treacy says he went for the line a lap early in his 1,000m heat on a day of heartbreak for British short-track speed skaters at Beijing 2022.

His brother Niall had crashed out on the back straight in the previous heat and, in the women's 500m, Kathryn Thomson fell in the first lap.

«I swear I heard a bell and I went to the line a lap early, which is obviously excruciating in the position I was in,» he told BBC Sport.

«A big mistake.»

He added: «I don't know if there was a noise, I just assumed there was a lap to go in my head.

»It was like this was the last corner and then really late when I was lunging for the line, I heard the bell then and I was like 'oh my God, what's happened?'

«It's my fault. I've never done this before so it's not a great time to do it, at the Olympic Games.»

The 26-year-old will have a chance to put it behind him when he goes again in the 1500m, but younger brother Niall's Olympic debut ends here.

«Going on the ice meant I became an Olympian, which is something I have always dreamed of,» Niall, 21, said.

«Unfortunately it didn't play out the way I planned it to. Last-lap heartbreak there, but I proved to myself that we should be here, we're in the mix with the world's best. It was a shame about that little mistake at the end.»

Short-track has dished up a series of disappointments for Team GB in recent Olympics, with Elise Christie notoriously missing out on medal chances through disqualifications and crashes in 2014 and 2018.

And Thomson was left emotional after her 500m heat, where she seemed to be clipped by Polish skater Patrycja Maliszewska on the first lap.

«I'm quite frustrated — to be taken down in the first half lap is quite disappointing but I've got two more distances so I'm just going to