Olympics: Britain's slimmer version

BRITAIN'S team for the Lillehammer Winter Olympics from 12-27 February will be the smallest the country has sent to a Winter Games for 34 years. The former gold medallists and newly crowned European ice dance champions, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, head the 36-strong party which was announced by the British Olympic Association yesterday.

The contingent for Norway is the smallest since the BOA sent only 17 competitors to Squaw Valley, USA in 1960, and contains 17 fewer athletes than the one which went to the 1992 Albertville Games.

One third of the 1994 team is made up by 12 bobsledders, including Mark Tout, who has high hopes of driving Britain to their first medal in the sport since Tony Nash and Robin Dixon won the two-man bobsleigh at Innsbruck in 1964. Tout and his crew of Lenny Paul, George Farrell and Jason Wing recently won the silver medal in the European four- man championships.

It will be the fourth successive Games for Tout, the biathlete Michael Dixon and the Alpine skiers Martin and Graham Bell.

British team, Sporting Digest, page 35