‘MAGIC MONDAY’ may have come and gone without reward, but Team GB’s hunt for a first medal at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics is far from over.
A week in, it has been a familiar story of agonisingly fine margins for the British contingent. What had been billed as a potentially historic Games for a talented squad has instead begun with a succession of near misses.
Monday, in particular, proved bruising.
Scottish mixed doubles curling pair Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds — among the pre-Games favourites — won eight of their nine round-robin matches before falling to eventual gold medallists Sweden in the semi-finals. It was an unwelcome echo of their fourth-place finish in Beijing four years ago.
“It hurts the same as four years ago really,” Dodds told The Times after the match. “I don’t want to ugly cry so I’m just going to stop there.
“I’m seeing all the messages and it is so heartwarming to know the whole country is behind you.”
Earlier in the day, fellow Scot Kirsty Muir missed out on bronze in the freestyle slopestyle by a razor-thin 0.41 points.
“I’ll be proud of myself in a minute, but I’m in a bit of a hole right now,” she told TNT Sports.
Then, on Monday evening, snowboarder Mia Brookes fell just short of landing a trick that would have secured not only a place on the podium but a slice of snowboarding history.
A case of the Mondays — but reasons for hope
Despite the early drama, there is perspective to be had. Milano Cortina 2026 is still in its infancy and, as every athlete knows, opportunities come round again quickly at the Winter Games.
Britain may not have a reputation for unbridled optimism, yet there is ample reason to believe the medals will come.
Neither Muir nor Brookes played it safe in pursuit of the podium. Brookes, in particular, opted for ambition over security, attempting a backside 1620 — a trick mastered by only one other competitor in the field, gold medallist Kokomo Murase.
“I could have done a 14 and come fourth or third, but I also could have done the 16, and landed it and won,” she said in a statement published by Team GB.
“If I’d have landed it, I would have been the second woman to do it. It’s really special. For women snowboarding, it would have been insane.”
Both athletes have further chances ahead in their preferred disciplines. Muir’s freeski big air qualification begins on Saturday (14 February), while Brookes — fresh from her X Games slopestyle triumph last month — competes in Olympic qualification on 16 February.
There is strength in depth elsewhere too. Snowboard cross specialist Charlotte Bankes arrives in excellent form, while Zoe Atkin enters the freeski halfpipe as reigning world champion.
The curlers, meanwhile, must regroup swiftly. Mouat returns to the ice on Wednesday (11 February) to lead the men’s team, silver medallists in 2022, into their opening preliminary round match. Dodds is the sole remaining member of the women’s rink that claimed gold four years ago; their title defence begins on Thursday (12 February).
In figure skating, history beckons. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson are bidding to become Britain’s first Olympic medallists in the discipline since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean secured bronze at Lillehammer in 1994. They sit fourth heading into Wednesday evening’s showdown, behind France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, the United States’ Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.
Skeleton, too, offers genuine promise. Between them, Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt have won all seven World Cup races this season. Britain’s women have reached the Olympic podium at every Winter Games since 2002, and Tabitha Stoecker has made an encouraging start on the Milano Cortina track, posting the fastest time in two practice sessions.
Eve Muirhead, Britain’s four-time Olympic gold medallist and now chef de mission, has urged calm.
“I think we always speak about winter sports and how it comes down to absolutely nothing, and I think the last couple of days has been a prime example of that,” she told The Times.
“It’s been millimetres, milliseconds but, you know what, I’m really kind of positive; we’ve got a long way to go. We are only on day four, and there’s a lot of great events to come.”
For now, the medal column remains blank. But the margins are fine — and the Games are young.
