Bravehearts can stop British slide

Like four Scottish bravehearts sliding to the rescue, Hammy McMillan and his curling team will today be charged with putting some Irn Bru oomph into Britain's woeful winter Olympics challenge here in Salt Lake City. Just a wee bit would do.

Now, nobody ever pretended that the 50-strong GB team were going to set the place ablaze. However, five million quid's worth of investment and some gung-ho pronouncements from team management about this being the best team to leave for any Games might have prepared us for something a little more heartening than the weekend's fare.

So far, we've had Laura Donaldson and Joanne Bromfield, in the women's freestyle skiing moguls, propping up the entire field, and Glynn Pedersen, the new Eddie Edwards, sadly not doing a great deal to live down this dubious tag by finishing 43rd out of 48 in the 90m ski jumping while leaping three metres worse than in practice.

Then there was Scottish snowboarder Lesley McKenna, realistically our third best hope for a medal at these Games following three podium finishes in the halfpipe-discipline, slipping and crashing on her first run and finally finishing 17th of the 23 competitors in Park City.

Mark Hatton, a 28-year-old Londoner, did his best to regain some respectability by breaking the British record in his first luge run but, lying 25th overnight, he will have his work cut out to finish in the top half of the 49-strong field today.

So step forward, Team McMillan. The former world champions today set out on what they hope will be a marathon 12- day glide towards the final, but they face a formidable opening test against Canada and tomorrow they take on world champions Sweden.

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