London , Feb 24(TNS): Great Britain’s record medal haul at Pyeongchang 2018 shows winter sport in the country is “going in the right direction”, said the team’s chef de mission as the Games ended.
Team GB won five medals in South Korea, surpassing the previous record of four and meeting their pre-Olympics target. These athletes can rightly return home very proud of what they accomplished here in South Korea,” said Mike Hay. Lizzy Yarnold defended her skeleton title to win Britain’s only gold, while Dom Parsons and Laura Deas took bronze in the same sport. Izzy Atkin was also third in the ski slopestyle and Billy Morgan claimed a surprise bronze in the big air competition. To leave Pyeongchang with five medals – our best ever Games in that respect – and a host of fourth-place finishes and top 10s across the sports shows that winter sport in the United Kingdom is going in the right direction,” added Hay.
“We have seen two weeks of phenomenal sport, there is a real interest from the British public and people do like to see us successful. A lot of investment has gone in and there is a criticism over whether we are giving too much. What does everyone want? What is best for the country? There is an amazing reaction from people who see the Olympic Games – people get very engaged, united and inspired by it, go and do activities because of it. When you try and put a number on ‘is it worth the values we see’, it’s so much more complicated than ‘that medal cost that much’ or otherwise. It’s buying into a huge system of sport across many countries. South Korea and North Korea marched together at the Winter Olympics closing ceremony. After the awarding of 102 gold medals in 15 sports across 16 days, nearly 3,000 athletes from 92 countries marched into the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, greeted by colourful light shows and South Korean music, for Sunday’s closing ceremony. South Korean president Moon Jae-in and Ivanka Trump, the daughter of US president Donald Trump, were in attendance, as was General Kim Yong-chol, the head of North Korea’s delegation……courtsy BBC
