Wales’ Mica Moore In The Mood To Follow Laura Deas Onto Olympic Podium

The waiting is finally over for Mica Moore as she and team partner Mica McNeil compete in the opening two runs of the women’s bobsleigh competition at the Winter Olympics.

Wales’ Moore is part of a duo who have already impressed in training, finishing inside the top five on four of their six practice runs. Now, they have to produce in competition time. The first run goes off at 11:40am (UK) on Tuesday.

Wales has already produced one medallist in Pyeongchang when Wrexham’s Laura Deas won a bronze in the skeleton.

Now, 24-year-old Moore, from Newport, has a chance to emulate her Great Britain teammate.

“Obviously there are a couple of Welsh people and for myself as a Welsh woman I love to represent Wales,” says Moore.

“Whenever I go home people ask me what bobsleigh is like and how they can get into it, so I try to tell as many people about it as possible”.

The two Micas are powered by the people after a crowd-funding initiative allowed them to raise vital funds during the qualification window for the Games.

For the past two weeks they have been heads down in South Korea preparing for their big moment, and so far the signs are promising.

Across their three training days on the track ahead of tomorrow’s competition getting underway, the Brits steadily moved up the time sheets, including going joint second and third quickest on their fifth and sixth runs.

Moore adds: “You do have to pinch yourself because there was a point in time where we felt we are not going to be able to do this.

“I think that at any championship anything can happen.

Mica Moore (left) and Mica McNeill.

“It comes down to who performs on the day and me and Mica… what we have been working towards is getting that consistency. I hope we can do really well.”

McNeill believes the 2017 world junior champions – who achieved Britain’s best result in more than eight years last November when finishing fifth at the Whistler World Cup – are showing they are not to be underestimated come competition day.

“I’m really happy with how this block of training has come together,” said McNeill.

“In the gym, I feel strong and powerful. I think it’s all coming together at the right time.

“I can’t imagine sitting at home right now and watching it on tv and for that, Mica and myself are so grateful.

“It’s given us the opportunity not just to come and fulfil our dream but to represent our country and have a female bobsleigh team at the Games.

“This means so much. This is our sporting career and every athlete wants to be competing. No one wants to be sitting at home and for that it means the absolute world.

“Obviously getting here is absolutely incredible for what we’ve been through this last year but I want to see a single-figure result.”

Valuable practice time on the ice is essential to get a proper understanding of the nuances of the track, and the British duo have been making up for lost time this week.

In an ideal world, they would have had more practices prior to arriving in PyeongChang but 2012 Youth Olympic Games silver medallist McNeill has been making sure to do her homework.

“I never got a chance to slide on it before, other nations have got 30, 35 heats on me and Mica,” she added.

“They’ve got experience here so we were at a bit of a disadvantage. But I’ve watched hundreds of sleds and rewatched the races and really studied it.

“Then when I got the chance to go on the track, it paid off and I picked it up quite quickly. It’s a really fun track.”