Skeleton-Britain's Weston takes unlikely route to gold medal favourite

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 8 - A junior taekwondo champion with a broken back from a country that does not boast a single sliding track, Briton Matt Weston is an unlikely star of skeleton, yet he arrives at the Olympics in Cortina as double world champion and hot favourite for gold.

After the teenage injury that ended his fighting career, Weston found skeleton at the age of 20 through the British Olympic Association's talent discovery scheme.

Eight years later, after a sobering experience at the Beijing Olympics, Weston is the dominant athlete in his sport.

Despite missing his usual pre-season preparation with a thigh tear, last month he sewed up a third successive World Cup title having won five of the seven races and finished second - to compatriot Marcus Wyatt - in the other two.

Both men will hope to medal in Cortina, with the target to get a first men's British gold in the event after the women have claimed three.

"Obviously, I've got a lot of confidence and a lot of momentum coming into this Olympics with the success I've had but I'm still not taking my foot off the gas," said Weston, who starts his bid on Thursday.

"It's the Olympics. People bring their best performances, so you have to make sure that you're there doing that as well.

"But I'm like 'I am the best in the world' and I'm trying to take it as confidence going in. I've learned to use that pressure and expectation as a positive for me, rather than letting it weigh me down."

PAINFUL BEIJING DEBRIEF

Like many elite athletes, Weston learned a lot from when things did not go to plan as he travelled to the Beijing Olympics with high hopes, only to finish 15th - a huge four seconds behind the winner.

A painful debrief followed and Weston says the work he has done with sports psychologists, along with major equipment and training improvements, revolutionised his approach.

"Those one-percent gains really do add up. Equipment is a massive thing in our sport but also my own performance, making sure that I'm best recovered and ready to go out and perform," he said - speaking before Britain's new helmet design was ruled illegal this week due to its aerodynamic properties.

"But I think the biggest difference is the top two inches, and that's being able to compete consistently and being able to deal with lots of different situations.

"It's at the top when I'm staring down the track. This sport is pretty dangerous. I'm going head first with only a helmet to protect me at almost 90 miles an hour, so there's that kind of fear that you have to get over.

"But I think it's more the pressure and the anxiety of that the night before, the warm-up and how I'm approaching it stood at the top, that's where it makes the biggest difference."

Weston says some of the reaction requirements that made him successful in taekwondo - and minimised the number of times he got punched in the face - have contributed to his skeleton skills, alongside an almost manic will to win.

Unusually, though, he says his rivalry with Wyatt has also been a huge help. "One of the reasons Marcus and I are fighting for one and two in the world rather than seven and eight or something is because we work together," he said.

"You might think that sounds a bit funny because obviously we're bitter rivals on the track, but off it we're really good friends. We share rooms with each other half the year and share ideas and that helps enable us to have these amazing performances on the track." REUTERS