A general view shows the National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the 'Ice Ribbon', the venue for speed skating events at the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing on Feb 3, 2021, a year before the opening of the Games on Feb 4, 2022. (WANG ZHAO / AFP)

As the last 12 months have shown, a lot can happen in the space of a year. But with a year to go until the start of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the head of Britain's winter sports has said the team is well-placed to break its own record medal haul achieved at the last two Games.

The resilience, perseverance and dedication shown by the athletes has been amazing.

Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport

Next year, Beijing will become the first city to host both the Winter and Summer Games, after its spectacular staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In 2018, the world's top winter sports athletes gathered in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang, where Great Britain won five medals, a repeat of its haul in Sochi, Russia, four years earlier.

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Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport, said despite the chaos of the last 12 months, the team hoped for more success next year in China.

"Each games we get better and better, so we want to improve on our medals from last time and have more people on more podiums than ever before," she said. "Of course, it depends on factors like injury and the standard of the competition, but we're very hopeful that in Beijing we'll come back stronger than we have before.

"The last year has been extremely complicated, obviously, with events being canceled, but in those that have gone ahead, we've had some great results and, if anything, we've overdelivered, so all in all we can't complain."

COVID-19 travel exemptions have meant many British winter sports athletes have managed to spend as much time as possible abroad on the snow, something that is in short supply in the United Kingdom.

In competitive shape

This has kept them in competitive shape to take on their rivals, but the lack of test events at the Olympic facilities in Beijing could add an air of unpredictability next year.

"Obviously, all the nations that have access to snow will have been out on it as much as possible, but the cancellation of the test events means that the first time anyone will see the conditions in Beijing will be when they get there," she said.

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 medalist) James Woods in freestyle skiing, and (2018 Olympic bronze medalist) Izzy Atkin in slopestyle," she added.

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

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"Training has been turned on its head and schedules are constantly reshuffled and replanned," she said.

"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."

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