Winter Olympics: Team GB miss out on medal in four-man bobsleigh

After having to self-fund their Olympic dream, the four-man bobsleigh team from Great Britain feels their sixth-place finish in Beijing is like a medal.

The team are hoping for a re-think after UK Sport cut funding for bobsleigh after they finished 17th in the Olympics.

I really hope UK Sport takes a long, hard look at us, said Nick Gleeson, who was also in the sled.

We have beaten a lot of nations with a bigger budget.

The 25-year-old said that they have done the last three years on a personal budget that is less than 10% of what these guys spend in a year.

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Hall, Gleeson, Greg Cackett and Taylor Lawrence sat sixth overnight, but could not close the gap on the podium places.

Germany won gold and silver in the sliding events on the final day of the Winter Olympics. All but one of the sliding events have been won by German teams.

It meant a double-double for Germany's Francesco Friedrich, who won the two and four-man events for the second year in a row and became the first person to achieve this in successive Games.

Canada won the bronze at the sliding centre.

The aggregate time over the four runs was 55.72 seconds, which was behind the winning time.

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After sacrifices 'this is like a medal'

After UK Sport decided not to fund bobsleigh for this Olympic cycle, Hall had to use Crowdfunding to boost his campaigns.

He and his team have devoted themselves to raising the money and improving their results, even moving in together during the first lockdown of the Pandemic. Hall went to Germany to learn from their coaches.

The team took three World Cup silvers in the four-man and two-man, and a bronze and two silvers in the four-man, to finish fourth and fifth in the overall rankings.

We would have loved to have gotten a medal, who wouldn't, but top six is like a medal for everything we have gone through.

UK Sport gave more than 5 million dollars to the Bobsleigh team before the Olympics. It got 120,000 in the Olympic cycle.

Since the sport returned to the Olympic programme in 2002, sliding sport skeleton has delivered three golds, one silver and three bronze medals. The British skeleton athletes finished in the top 22 at the Beijing Games.