Blue Monday: Team GB’s Olympics begin with series of near misses

Team GB’s medal targets could hardly be called lofty coming into these Games. No one is under any illusions that Great Britain is a nation well set up to succeed at winter sports. But the aim of setting a record Winter Olympics tally of more than five medals took a big blow on a Blue Monday, as two medal hopes walked away empty handed, whilst a third will be left fighting it out for bronze today.

Both Kirsty Muir and Mia Brookes, who were genuine medal contenders coming into the Olympics, had to settle for fourth place in their respective events of Freestyle Skiing Slopestyle and Snowboard Big Air.

Meanwhile Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat will fear they are back in Beijing four years ago – where they finished fourth – as they lost a nightmare semi-final match against Sweden.

Dodds and Mouat will undoubtedly be most frustrated even if they do still have the opportunity to win a medal today when they face Italy in the bronze match. There was a creeping sense of deja-vu as a disastrous sixth end which saw Sweden score five – only the second time in the whole Olympics that a team has managed that – to leave an insurmountable score. The mixed doubles curling pair had lost only one match in the entire round robin and were clearly the team to be beat heading into the playoffs.

It was a similar situation in Beijing when they entered the competition as World Champions but lost in the semi-finals and in the bronze medal match.

It was Dodds who threw the stone which ultimately led to Sweden gaining an unassailable lead, after it failed to land in the house, with a disappointing performance after a close to perfect competition so far.

“We are both disappointed we didn’t play like we had played all week,” she said. “The common theme was we were always soaring heavy. It put us on the backfoot.”

Whilst Dodds and Mouat will feel like they threw away their chance at a silver or gold medal, Muir and Brookes fought until the very end.

It was a tough final for Muir who could only score 37.15 in her first run after a fall. That ramped up the pressure on her and she improved on each run, scoring 63.01 and then 76.05. It was a slight slip on her second jump that cost her a medal because in her final jump, she landed a double cork 1440, the biggest trick of the day. In the end, Mathilde Gremmaud took gold and Eileen Gu silver, as was the case four years ago. Muir was just 0.41 points off the bronze medal position.

“I just need to have a moment to process,” said Muir.

“I don’t want to dwell on it too much. So I’m going to go through this, accept it and try to find the positives that I can from it and then completely reset.”

Brookes put down three runs which allowed her to push for a medal, even though it was not to be. It was a strong improvement on qualifying where she found herself under pressure after failing to land her first run. Ultimately, however, she fell shy of the scores the medallists were able to reach, with Japan’s Kokomo Murase winning gold.

In both finals, it was notable how high the standard of women’s snowsports has become over the past couple of years, with more women than ever before landing tricks that would not even have been on a competitive radar prior.

That was part of the motivation behind Mia Brookes’ Hail Mary attempt to win a medal in her final, knowing she was sitting in fourth on her third and final run. Brookes attempted a backside 1620, which involves four and a half rotations in the air, something which has not been achieved in competition before.

“I could have done a 14 (1440) and come fourth or third, but I also could have done the 1620, which I did, and landed it and won,” said Brookes.

“I would rather be in fourth with a 16 rather than fourth and a 14.“It’s really special and it would have been insane. I didn’t want to do it at all but sometimes you just have to grit your teeth.”

Both athletes will get another shot at a medal later in the Games with Muir entered into the Big Air event and Brookes into the Slopestyle. Both will also be seen as legitimate medal contenders for those too. Whilst the disappointment in how close they came is understandable, the fact that they have learned to ski and snowboard on dry slopes and managed to reach this level is some achievement. It is testament to the careers they are having that a fourth placed finish could even be seen as disappointing, given their backgrounds.

Team GB emphasised coming into the games that winter sports are particularly hard to predict, given how much can go wrong. Monday certainly proved that to be the case. Earlier in the week, Katherine Grainger, chair of the British Olympic Association, talked about how hard the disparate nature of the Games was in terms of capitalising on good feeling in the camp. After Monday, the opportunity for everyone to be off in their own spaces might be the best outcome possible.

Photograph by David Davies/PA Wire