By James Toney

Team GB officials are confident next year's Winter Olympic sliding events will take place in Italy - despite a back-up plan to stage them 4,000 miles away.

With one year to go until the 2026 Games, Italian organisers are working around the clock to complete the 1,650-metre sliding track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, with Lake Placid in the USA their 'plan B'.

Bobsleigh and skeleton are shaping up to be two of Team GB's major hope hopes after a succession of World Cup podiums by their athletes this season, meaning their coaches are strategising on two scenarios for next February.

"We're quite calm about it, but we can't do anything about it," said Team GB chef de mission Eve Muirhead, a curling gold medallist three years ago in Beijing.

"Every time we've been there, we've seen progress made. They are working hard to make it work. If it doesn't go to plan, we change and tackle that. The team knows they need to compete on whatever track is put in front of them.

"The organising committee are doing monthly checks on the sliding, and all is up to speed, and they are very positive. We've got to work with what we have in front of us, but we trust the organising committee, and we're focused on sliding being in Cortina."

Team GB won five medals at the Games in 2014 and 2018 but returned from China with just two, both in curling and struck on the final weekend of competition.

Muirhead expects a team of around 50 to compete in Italy, with teenage snowboarder Mia Brookes, who won the world Slopestyle title two years aged just 16, expected to be among the stars.

UK Sport have invested £25m in a four-year programme for gold in the Italian Alps but Muirhead is staying coy on her medal ambitions.

"We're not putting numbers on our ambitions, it's unfair to put that pressure on athletes," she added.

"One year to go is a really exciting milestone, as that's when the tension builds up and qualification comes. I know what it's like in that pressure pot of qualification, and that's what everyone is going through in the next few months. Winter sports are very unpredictable—there are such small margins between winning and losing on the winter stage.

"I've had every possible experience of an Olympic Games—the highs and lows—I want to listen and share my experience and be there as a support.

"It's important the athletes get to do what they want to do. I want to listen, see what they need to perform under pressure, and make sure they get it. I've learned so much over the years, and I know how difficult and daunting it is."