Winter Olympic Daily Updates: #1 On your marks

With the biggest crew ever to compete in a Winter Olympics, Team GB are looking for a record medal haul. Keep ahead of the game – and the anti-social time difference – with Fall-Line’s regular briefing from PyeongChang, starting today

This is it snow-loving friends, the 2018 Winter Olympics have arrived! Hang on, you say, aren’t you jumping the gun? The Opening Ceremony doesn’t kick off until Friday morning (at 10.30am GMT to be precise). True, but some competitors have already got stuck into the action as you read this, with training runs already completed for ski jumping, luge and biathlon.

Here we find ourselves, the snowballs of the PyeongChang Games already rolling and a disquieting sense that we might just miss it all because of the pesky nine-hour time difference between South Korea and the UK. Fear not: Fall-line will ensure you’re kept fully up to speed with all the Team GB action with daily morning briefings and top tips on what to tune in for through the Games.

First things first, some stats: the 23rd Winter Olympic Games officially run from 9-25 February and will see over 3,000 athletes from 90 countries compete for 102 sets of medals across 15 sports. Team GB has selected 59 athletes from 11 sports for the Games, the most that Great Britain has ever taken to an Olympic Winter Games, aiming to bring home a record-breaking five medals.

Fall-Line Winter Olympics coverage_James Woods
59 Team GB Athletes will compete in the 2018 Games

The daily PyeongChang action starts at midnight GMT and will typically finish by 2pm GMT. Unfortunately, most of the Big Glory events, including the Alpine races, ski and snowboard slopestyle and halfpipe finals, will require some 2am alarm clock action to follow live, so we’ll give you advance warning of these. (The first heads-up being the 2am Alpine skiing men’s downhill this Sunday.)

We fully intend these blogs to be heavily biased in favour of Team GB, and the ski and snowboard disciplines in particular, complete with soundbites from some of the athletes we’ve followed over the years and have been interviewing in recent months. Although we will, of course, advise you of major international developments (particularly if Dave Ryding prevents Marcel Hirscher from scooping a brace of gold medals on 22 February) and of Team GB medal hopefuls and hauls in disciplines such as speed skating, skeleton and curling.

You’ll hear from us next on Friday, when we’ll expose any Opening Ceremony dramas and give you a handy reminder of who’s who on Team GB.