Matt Weston dominates skeleton to become GB’s first male gold medallist since 1984

Welcome to our live coverage of the Winter Olympics. Strap yourselves in, tonight could be the night Team GB finally breaks their medal duck at Milano-Cortina, as Britain’s Matt Weston targets a place on the podium in the skeleton.

Weston underlined his gold medal credentials with near-perfect runs yesterday, setting successive course records as he jumped to the top of the leaderboard.

The 28-year-old, who is a two-time world champion, is Britain’s brightest medal prospect at the Games and after his two statement runs on Thursday, the big question is whether he can continue that fine form in heats three and four tonight.

In a measure of his superiority, Weston was the only slider under 56 seconds as he clocked 55.88secs in heat two, to add to his 56.21secs in run one on the Cortina sliding track.

“I was quite annoyed after the first run. I tried to be a bit too relaxed because I tried to over-compensate for race-day nerves,” said Weston.

“It’s pretty crazy [to be the overnight leader] but I take every run as run one. I will completely reset myself, switch off for a bit and then re-focus on Friday.”

Weston’s teammate, Marcus Wyatt, sits in seventh place on a total time of 1:53.21, 1.12s behind Weston and 0.66s off the medals. Wyatt was also viewed as a major medal prospect, but after losing time in his first two runs, a shot at the podium looks out of reach.

Stay tuned as we bring you live updates from all the skeleton action.