Bariyat Taiwo Eyiowuawi: Skeleton athlete on 2026 Winter Olympics hopes

Bariyat Taiwo Eyiowuawi has gone from a 400m runner to being in the running for a spot at the 2026 Winter Olympics

After a disappointing Winter Olympics for Great Britain's skeleton athletes in Beijing, heads have already turned to Milano Cortina in 2026 and who could potentially put Team GB back among the medals on the track.

A programme championed by Great Britain's most decorated winter Olympian, Lizzy Yarnold, has found five new skeleton athletes hoping to emulate her gold medal successes from Sochi and Pyeongchang.

Bariyat Taiwo Eyiowuawi was a 400-metre runner, with almost no knowledge of winter sports and skeleton, when she was encouraged to enter UK Sport's Girls4Gold campaign - designed to find the most talented female athletes to compete in Milan, four years from now.

"I didn't really know what skeleton was - I knew it was a winter sport, kind of similar to bobsleigh," the 21-year-old, from London, says.

"So when I applied I watched some YouTube videos to find out what it was - I thought 'wow, OK, I don't really know what I've signed up for but let's see how this goes."

Unlike bobsleigh, skeleton is a solo sliding event where the athlete rides a sled down an ice track while lying on their front, head first, with only their feet and the track walls to slow them down.

Riders can reach speeds of up to 90mph.

"I can't describe the feeling, I can't even compare it to being on a rollercoaster, it's something you have to experience," Eyiowuawi says.

"You are going really fast and your whole body can feel everything that's going on."

Selectors whittled down candidates before settling on five young female athletes to be trained as skeleton sliders.

The Girls4Gold programme is funded by the National Lottery. Along with the government, the lottery invested £32m into British Olympic and Paralympic winter athletes and sports for the Games in Beijing.

Eyiowuawi is joined by Ashlyn Bland, Isabella Fassnidge, Eleanor Griffin and Abigail Peake in the next group of Team GB medal hopefuls.

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold was selected through the Girls4Gold programme

Between May and March, Eyiowuawi is based in Bath for training, with the skeleton competition circuit beginning towards the end of the calendar year.

Taiwo and the other athletes got their first taste of training on an ice track in Lillehammer, Norway, in November.

"As beginners it's inevitable that you could get a hit or two on your way down," she says.

"One of the things they really reinforced with us right from the start was having good form and relaxing and you will get down faster and in one piece.

"The higher up you go in the track, the faster you will go and those things become inevitable. It's a sport where you will get bumps and bruises."

Eyiowuawi and her fellow athletes can take comfort in knowing Yarnold, who won gold at Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018, had also never tried her hand at skeleton before signing up to the programme in its first year in 2008.

She has been inspired by the success of Yarnold, who was herself a heptathlete before signing up to the programme, and fellow 2018 medallist Laura Deas.

"Definitely Lizzy and Laura [are my idols]," she says.

"Fortunately Laura still trains at Bath so I've been able to see her getting the sessions in and her determination leading up to the Games."

Deas won bronze in Pyeongchang four years ago and recently competed in Beijing, disappointingly finishing in 19th place.

Team GB finished with just two medals in China, both in curling, with the men winning silver and Eve Muirhead securing gold at her fourth Games as skip of the women's team.

Eyiowuawi will ultimately aim to emulate her idols in Milan in 2026 but, before then, she will compete in the Europa Cup and the Junior World Championships, with a view to qualifying for the World Cup and then the Olympics.

"I was speaking to a few of the girls about this the other day, because we're here now and because we've kind of just been going through everything, we haven't really had time to look back and see, 'wow, a year ago I would never have imagined myself to be here', and being here now is quite beautiful," she said.

"I definitely want to compete on the international circuit and progress on to qualify for the Olympic Games, where I can win the gold.

"I want to inspire people from different backgrounds so that they can get into a sport like this."