Alex is poised for Winter Olympic gold

13 April 2012

There isn't much of her - but this is Britain's best hope for a gold medal at next month's Winter Olympics. And the event she competes in is seemingly so dangerous that it has been banned from the Games for 54 years.

Skeleton bobsleigh involves travelling down a mountainside - head first - on something that looks like a tea tray.

But - with the event due to be reintroduced at next month's Olympics in Salt Lake City - 28-year-old Alex Coomber is being widely tipped to take possibly Britain's only gold medal of the games.

The Royal Air Force intelligence officer from Somerset is currently World Cup champion. Despite only taking up the sport five years ago, she is regarded as the British team's best hope for a gold since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean triumphed on the Olympic ice rink at Sarajevo back in 1984.

Skeleton bob was founded in St Moritz in the late 1800s and contested there as an Olympic sport in 1928 and 1948. In the 1928 run, Britain collected the gold thanks to the 11th Earl of Northesk - a direct descendent of Lord Nelson's third-incommand at Trafalgar.

Now Coomber hopes to follow in his footsteps - and become the first woman to win an Olympic gold at the event - when she hurtles her 52kg, 5ft 3in frame down the milelong track, with the first six competitors separated by less than half a second.

To win the gold, Coomber, an Oxford graduate, must complete the race in under 50 seconds. To date her record is 50.25 seconds. The slightest mistake as she steers the "tea tray" with her head, shoulders and knees could make the difference between first and fifth place.

She said: "I am confident I will do well, but the smallest error on the day can cost me the competition. A simple 3cm over 3km can change everything." And the danger? "Initially I'm anxious before a run, but then the professionalism kicks in and I convert it into adrenaline and focus on what I need to do to achieve the best run."

The RAF granted the officer an 18-month sabbatical to help prepare for the games and has "high hopes" for her. A spokeswoman said: "We have absolute confidence in Alex."

While preparing last week she hit a wall practising on new equipment at La Plagne in the French Alps, and was rushed to hospital. But after treatment to her chin she was released and said she was "looking forward to my next race".

British team manager Simon Timpson said: "It's not actually as dangerous as it looks, because the athletes can naturally roll off the sled and then back onto it again if they need to."

Coomber, he said, "has a very good chance of winning a medal". Ironically he also believes the lack of ice and snow in the UK makes the British team stronger: "Our athletes have to learn to be flexible and this works to our advantage.We train in all conditions and are not used to one particular track like other squads."

The British Winter Olympic team is funded by the National Lottery Commission, which donates £100,000 a year to enable the team to travel to the nearest ice training runs in France and Germany. The new English Institute of Sport based at Bath University has also boosted the team's hopes, investing £250,000 in a 100m concrete viaduct built to follow the contours of the Olympic track.

In Salt Lake City, the British athlete's main competition for a place on the podium is likely to come from three other recordholders at skeleton bob: Switzerland's Maya Pederson, Russia's Ekaterina Mironova and Michelle Kelly of Canada.

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Alex is poised for Winter Olympic gold

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