Power of the people propels Mica McNeill and Mica Moore into bobsleigh medal contention

The infectious joy exuded by Mica McNeill and Mica Moore, Britain’s crowd-funded bobsleigh duo, could not be more starkly at odds with the rancour and mudslinging that brought them here. Just five months ago, the two learned that money for the women’s team would be scrapped, after financial miscalculations at their national governing body led to a £50,000 overspend. On Wednesday, they will propel themselves down their final Olympic runs with a realistic chance of a medal.

As funding oversights go, the decision by the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association (BBSA) to leave the two Micas to fend for themselves counts as one of the most egregious. The pair had proven their worth in global competition, with McNeill winning gold at the world junior championships last year, and had difficulty reconciling their treatment with the continued support for three British men’s crews. While their grievances grew, allegations of bullying, sexism and racism became the subject of an independent review.

From McNeill and Moore’s demeanour on Tuesday night, this toxic backdrop to their Pyeongchang campaign had been left far behind. Courtesy of what McNeill described as “power of the people”, she and her partner reached their online funding target of £30,000 in little over a week, reciprocating such strong public faith by moving to sixth in the standings with two runs left, just 0.46 seconds behind German leaders Mariama Jamanka and Lisa Buckwitz.

“We have a few little things to tidy up on our drive,” said McNeill, whose brakewoman Moore juggles bobsleigh in winter with 100 metres sprinting in summer. “Being brand new to this track, we are still learning. But we are so happy just to be here and that is flowing through to our performance. We are recognise that these moments do not come around too often.”

On a night when British speed-skating, bankrolled to the tune of £4.8 million over the last four-year Olympic cycle, let slip its last medal prospect with a third straight failure for Elise Christie, the move to let McNeill and Moore scrape together most of their money off public goodwill seemed frankly absurd.

Chelsea Warr, UK Sport’s director of performance, explained: “The fact, very disappointingly, is that the BBSA mismanaged their finances. But the girls still had programme support behind the scenes, and we quickly corrected some of the situations they got themselves into. We removed distractions and brought some great coaches in. The important part now is to focus on what could happen as opposed to what has happened.”

The tantalising possibility is that this most resilient of pairings could, with the runs of their lives, grasp the first medals by British women’s bobsledders in 94 years of these Games. For Nigeria’s Seun Adigun and Akuoma Omeoga, alas, such an idea is rather more remote. While they created history at the Alpensia Sliding Centre as the African nation’s first Winter Olympic representatives, their aggregate time of 1min 44.70sec left them dead last in the 20-strong field.

“In this sport, the biggest teacher is time,” acknowledged Adigun, a bobsleigh neophyte who competed in the 100 metres hurdles at London 2012. “We have been working on the whole idea of not quantifying a place or a time for these Olympics, but just showing people what we are trying to bring to the Olympic spirit. We want to set the groundwork for the future, for the country of Nigeria and the continent of Africa.

A similar motivation fuels the Jamaican double act of Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Phillips, who announced themselves as the island’s first female competitors at the Winter Olympics, 30 years after their male forbears’ exploits in Calgary inspired the film Cool Runnings. The road, however, has been littered with obstacles. Only last week, their coach Sandra Kiriasis quit, threatening to take the sled with her - a crisis only averted when the brewer Red Stripe offered via Twitter to pay £5,000 for a replacement.

Fenlator-Victorian, born in New Jersey and formerly in US colours for bobsleigh, piloted the team to a highly creditable 18^th, above Austria’s second string. As she put it: “Ultimately, this is about the pride we feel in representing Jamaica. We have to take the small gains.”