Jenny Jones, Aimee Fuller and James Woods will all be representing the UK next month at the 2014 Winter Olympics following the announcement of the full team this afternoon. The British Olympics Association have picked 56 athletes that will represent the UK and Northern Ireland in nine different disciplines, including the newly added snowboard and freeskiing slopestyle.
The line-up announcement comes after the pictures of the squad’s official kit were released earlier this week and ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony on 7 February. The BOA has set moderate targets for the squad with the skiing and snowboarding team projected to take home only 1-2 medals. Britain has enjoyed limited success in recent Games having won only five medals in the past three Games.
Much of the hopes rest on snowboarding veteran Jenny Jones, twice gold medallist in the snowboarding slopestyle, as well as younger James Woods and Jamie Nicholls in the men’s slopestyle for freeskiing and snowboarding respectively.
The 55 person squad in full:
Snowboarding: Ben Kilner, Billy Morgan, Dom Harington, Jamie Nicholls, Zoe Gillings, Jenny Jones, Aimee Fuller.
Freestyle skiing: Murray Buchan, James Woods, James Machon, Emma Lonsdale, Katie Summerhayes, Rowan Cheshire.
Alpine skiing: David Ryding, Chemmy Alcott Biathlon: Lee Jackson, Amanda Lightfoot. Bobsleigh: Stuart Benson, John Jackson, John Baines, Ben Simons, Joel Fearon, Bruce Tasker, Craig Pickering, Lamin Deen, Paula Walker, Rebekah Wilson. Cross country skiing: Andrew Young, Andrew Musgrave, Callum Smith, Rosamund Musgrave. Curling: David Murdoch, Tom Brewster, Greg Drummond, Michael Goodfellow, Scott Andrews, Claire Hamilton, Eve Muirhead, Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams, Lauren Gray. Figure skating: David King, Nick Buckland, Matthew Parr, Jenna McCorkell, Penny Coomes, Stacey Kemp. Short track speed skating: Jon Eley, Richard Shoebridge, Jack Whelbourne, Elise Christie, Charlotte Gilmartin. Skeleton: Lizzy Yarnold, Shelley Rudman, Kristan Bromley. Dominic Parsons