Sports Letters: All quiet on the Cresta Run

Sir: I thought I had ceased to be astonished by anything I read in the press. Not so. From today's account of the British four-man bobsleigh team's medal prospects, I learn that a member of the squad has been paid as a soldier while 'effectively on full- time leave' for six years.

Might I ask what possible advantage has accrued to the defence of the realm by paying this man to pilot his little tin car around the world's ski resorts? And if this is all he has done for the last six years, why on earth has he just been promoted?

Yours faithfully,

ANNE COWPER

Bishopston, Swansea

8 February