Eve Muirhead on why you should be excited about Team GB's golden generation at Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026
By Ben Snowball
Published 01/01/2026 at 09:33 GMT
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Team GB have never looked like this heading into a Winter Olympic Games. A young squad, genuine depth across multiple sports and a wave of athletes capable of making history has Eve Muirhead quietly confident ahead of Milano Cortina 2026. From Mia Brookes to Matt Weston, ice dance to freestyle skiing - and, of course, curling - Britain’s medal ceiling may finally be about to shatter.
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Britain have never gone into a Winter Olympics quite like this, not with this many credible medal chances, not with so many athletes capable of making history.
Eve Muirhead knows that better than most. Four years ago in Beijing, she delivered a long overdue curling gold at her fourth Olympics - a moment that papered over the cracks of a difficult Games for Team GB, which yielded just one other medal.
Now retired and in a new role as Britain's chef de mission, Muirhead will oversee the most unlikely of golden generations when Milano Cortina 2026 gets underway. Team GB have never won more than five medals at a single Winter Games. They could obliterate that in February.
"It’s a young team and it’s a team that has a lot of potential," Muirhead tells TNT Sports. "If you look at the previous winter season, we had nine World Championship medals - that’s the most we’ve ever had leading into a Winter Olympic Games.
"We’ve got a great breadth of opportunity, from ice dance to bobsleigh, skeleton to snowboard cross, curling… you name it. And we’re definitely more competitive in a wider variety of sports than we ever have been."
Teenage snowboard star Mia Brookes is the most obvious headline act, bidding for medals in slopestyle and big air, but she is far from alone.
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Matt Weston has started the skeleton season on fire, with team-mate Marcus Wyatt also impressing. Charlotte Bankes continues to set the standard in snowboard cross. Skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson are genuine medal contenders on the ice, as are freestyle skiers Zoe Atkin and Kirsty Muir on the snow. Dave Ryding will again chase history in slalom at a fifth - and final - Games aged 39. On the curling sheet, Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds return with the chance to rewrite the British record books.
| Team GB at Winter Olympics | Gold medals | Total medals |
| Calgary 1988 | 0 | 0 |
| Albertville 1992 | 0 | 0 |
| Lillehammer 1994 | 0 | 2 |
| Nagano 1998 | 0 | 1 |
| Salt Lake City 2002 | 1 | 2 |
| Turin 2006 | 0 | 1 |
| Vancouver 2010 | 1 | 1 |
| Sochi 2014 | 1 | 5 |
| Pyeongchang 2018 | 1 | 5 |
| Beijing 2022 | 1 | 2 |
Muirhead, though, is careful not to talk in targets.
"Of course we definitely want to win some medals. But you can’t put a price on a medal. I guess I know that better than anyone," she says. "We’ll cherish every medal we can get, but I’m not going to sit here and try and predict things.
"We could record a great number of firsts. We could have our best-ever start. We could have the first British athlete to win two or more medals in a Winter Olympics - there’s Mia Brookes, there’s Bruce Mouat, there’s Jenn Dodds, there’s Matt Weston if he does the mixed skeleton. Bruce and Jenn could become our most decorated Winter Olympians. They have a huge opportunity in the mixed doubles and the team event. We will cherish every opportunity and every medal we can get."
Asked to single out a few of those opportunities, Muirhead looked beyond her own sport.
"What’s really exciting is we’ve got opportunities in such a wide variety of sports," she says.
"In figure skating, Lilah and Lewis, that’s a really exciting opportunity for us. It’s been a long time since our previous medal [in figure skating] and they’ve proven on the world circuit that they are going very well. They just won back-to-back World Grand Prix medals, which we've not done before, which is really special.
"There are a lot of people I can go through. You look at Matt Weston, for example, he’s won back-to-back World Cups. I know he’s still not quite 100% after coming back from injury. So it’s very positive in the skeleton, including the mixed with Marcus as well. We’ve got a massive opportunity in skeleton, which is really exciting, and we could have our first male skeleton champion."
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Muirhead, who will "lead, manage and support" Team GB's entire delegation at Milano Cortina, says that the time zone in Italy will also be a bonus for British athletes and fans.
"The four Winter Olympics that I’ve been at, the time zone has never been great," she says. "So for this Olympics, we’ve got a massive opportunity with that one-hour time difference. For us, that’s massive. Plus, the stadiums will be full for the first time since Pyeongchang.
"The Winter Olympics have got everything that young fans want to see: style, creativity, flair. That’s what makes them so exciting to watch. And we’ve got a massive opportunity with a team packed full of potential."
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Watch and stream the Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026 on TNT Sports and discovery+
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