by Our Sports Desk

BRITISH winter sports stars will be hoping for a bumper medal haul in 2018 after UK Sport more than doubled their funding levels yesterday.

Eight sports will have just over £31 million to play with in the next four-year cycle up to the Pyeongchang games.

It should mean a boost to the 10 Team GB medals at the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi earlier this year.

UK Sport director of performance Simon Timson said: “I think we can safely say now that we have the best-ever cohort of British Winter Olympic and Paralympic athletes, supported by the strongest set of programmes in winter sports, that we have ever had.

“The fact we can say today we are aiming at a record haul in Pyeongchang is a reflection on what the sports are telling us — that we have the athletes and the programmes and we genuinely believe we have that opportunity,” he said.

Skeleton will remain the single biggest beneficiary with an award of £6.5m, followed by £5.4m for curling and £4.9m for ski-snowboard.

Wheelchair curling, bobsleigh, figure skating, short-track and para-skiing will also receive funding towards Pyeongchang, although the reward for the latter four is contingent on strict conditions being met by the end of year one of the cycle.

And the near £5m award to British Ski & Snowboard will have to be solely towards its slopestyle and halfpipe programmes, which yielded Britain’s first medal on snow for Jenny Jones in Sochi.

Timson added: “It is a reflection on the considerable success headlined by Jenny Jones’s medal.

“We have a real cohort of talented athletes here and we have a real opportunity to cement our place at the forefront of the world order in snowboard.”