Beijing's golden horizon is focus for British snow stars

With the 2021 winter sports seasons still ongoing, squad finalization is still some distance away, but Gosling said she hoped there would be a strong British presence in Beijing.

"We're hoping for representation in lots of categories, and with some serious players in there, like (2019 world championship gold medallist) James Woods in freestyle skiing, and (2018 Olympic bronze medallist) Izzy Atkin in slopestyle," she added.

One athlete who has been added to the GB ranks since the last Olympic Games is snowboarder Charlotte Bankes. British-born but France-based since childhood, she competed at the last two Olympics for France, but after Pyeongchang, decided her future lay with the land of her birth.

"I wasn't really finding my spot in the French team and decided I wanted to try something new, so I approached the GB team and it's worked out really well," she said.

The 25-year-old three-time French national champion and two-time junior world champion brings a wealth of experience to the GB set-up, and has made an instant impact, with a second place finish at the world championships and three victories in the Europa Cup competition in her first three months in the team.

"It's easier to perform in a smaller team," she said. "I wanted to find more pleasure in doing my sport, and that leads to improved performance."

After a year of so much uncertainty, she said, Beijing being on the horizon would provide some welcome focus.

"Under the circumstances, we've coped really well," she said, "but there have been so many changed plans, and we've not even known how many World Cup events we've got to compete in, with things being canceled and rescheduled, so even though it's a year away, it's good to have Beijing to work towards."

The way athletes and their support staff had responded to the events of the last year, Gosling said, was both revealing and inspiring.

"Training has been turned on its head and schedules are constantly reshuffled and replanned," she continued. "Never mind planning for the future, even dealing with next week has been a challenge, but the resilience, perseverance and dedication shown by the athletes has been amazing and has shown exactly what drives them to be high-level competitors in the first place.

"The fact everyone has had to be so adaptable has encouraged people to communicate and brought us together more, which has helped build a really strong team spirit, which is great for morale."

All this positivity, she said, could make Beijing a huge opportunity for winter sports in the UK.

"I want to remove perceived barriers in our sport, we don't want anybody to feel it's not for them, so the wider the funnel is at the bottom and the more people who are brought in, the greater the chance of creating a serious talent pool at the top," she said.

"We want to use the journey to Beijing 2022, and the Games themselves, to help bring that about."