Going into the men’s singles skeleton final, Team GB’s Matt Weston is in prime position to win the UK’s first medal at this year’s games.
The 29-year-old ended the first day of competition with a 0.3-second advantage at the top of the leaderboard, while his teammate Marcus Wyatt is in seventh.
Team GB have been within touching distance of medal positions so far at the Milano Cortina games, so could the current skeleton world and European champion be the one to finally get the UK on the medal table?
Who is Matt Weston?
Born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Weston started out his sporting career in a completely different discipline.
He practised taekwondo up until the age of 17, winning medals at UK-based events and international honours whilst representing England abroad.
At the taekwondo European Cup in 2012 he won both gold and silver, adding a silver and bronze to his collection at the International Taekwondo Federation World Cup in 2014 before retiring from the sport aged 17 due to a fracture in his back.
Right until he started the selection process for British Skeleton, he also played rugby, previously representing Kent as well as his local team Sevenoaks RFC and a Saracens Academy College.
His introduction to skeleton came via the British Skeleton Discover Your Gold talent identification scheme following a suggestion from his weightlifting coach, Chris Dear.
Speaking to Sky News sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao, Weston said it takes a “certain type of person” to take part in Skeleton.
“To get over that fear when you first start and you go down and you have no brakes,” he said.
“Whether you have a good run, a bad run, you crash or don’t crash, you are going to the bottom because it’s just sheet ice. Once you get over the fear and apprehension about that, it’s so much fun.”
From beginner to Olympian
Weston made his debut in skeleton in 2019. Before then he completed a tense training period with the Royal Marines, which was designed to test his physical and mental fitness.
He finished 15th in his debut race on the Europa Cup in Winterberg, Germany, closely followed by a silver medal in Igls, Austria, and bronze in Altenberg, Germany, just a month later.
By 2020 Weston was competing on the World Cup circuit and in November 2021 he won gold for Great Britain, the first men’s World Cup win in skeleton for almost 14 years.
Just over two years after he made his debut, he competed as an Olympian at the Beijing winter games in 2022.
In 2023, and paired with six-time world champion Martins Dukurs as a coach, Weston made major gains on both European and world stages.
He won the European title in January 2023 and a week later became world champion, taking the crown by a staggering 1.49 seconds.
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Weston started the 2025/26 season recovering from a thigh injury, but this didn’t hold him back.
In March 2025 he took his second world champion crown and in January of this year – only a month before the start of the Olympics – he cinched his third successive overall World Cup title.
He remains the UK’s most decorated slider at the world championship level.
