Brad Hall and his bobsleigh teammates are determined to motivate the next generation of athletes following their seventh-place finish in the four-man event at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
Strong Olympic Showing Despite Medal Miss
The team, consisting of Hall, Leon Greenwood, Greg Cackett, and Taylor Lawrence, entered the competition with podium aspirations. They had secured medals at the previous two World Championships and claimed the European title in 2023, yet an Olympic medal eluded them this time.
Despite the outcome, the group returned upbeat, greeted by friends and family amid celebrations for the British team’s record-breaking performance—the most successful Winter Olympics campaign to date, featuring three golds, one silver, and one bronze, including the first multi-gold haul at a single Games.
Vision for Future Success
Greg Cackett expressed pride in their achievements, stating, “It would have been amazing to win a medal but the journey we have had over the last four years has been stunning. We have won pretty much everything there is to win, not many British bobsleigh teams can say they’ve done that. I will always be proud of that.”
He highlighted growing public support for winter sports, noting, “It seems that people are really on our side and really understand the scale of what winter athletes are achieving. They see it is more than Cool Runnings and that we have got phenomenal athletes. Our female pilot Adele Nicoll is the British shot put champion. We have got multi-talented people developing a special sport and it is worth tuning in for.”
Call for Enhanced Coverage
Cackett advocated for broader mainstream exposure, especially after record viewing figures during the Games. “The YouTube stream could be massive if you invest a bit more into it,” he suggested. “You could have a studio with a host and a pundit – maybe someone called Greg Cackett when he retires – doing what Ski Sunday or Match of the Day does to get people interested. Tell people the characters, the rivalries. It could be so much more than it is.”
Hall echoed the sentiment, emphasizing accessibility: “It is about televising it. The more easily accessible it is, a lot more people will tune into it if it is available. It is an interesting sport, so if it is on TV people will watch it. That’s what needs to happen to increase the interest in the four years in between.”
British Resilience in Winter Sports
Hall praised the broader team’s accomplishments, observing, “We are not a winter sports nation, we don’t have the ice and snow but we go out and punch above our weight. We are going up against people that live in these places and grow up on the snow in the shadow of a halfpipe. We didn’t grow up in the shadow of a bobsleigh track, we transferred from other sports. It’s a miracle we win anything but it is the strength of our camaraderie, our hard work, our tenacity to go and win. That’s what makes it so difficult when we do fall short.”
