Sports Ladder (4th - 10th February)

UP - Jenny Jones - This week Jenny Jones became the first Briton in Winter Olympic history to win a medal on snow and only the 23rd ever to win a medal full stop. In fact, she won a medal quicker at the Winter Olympics than Team GB managed at the Summer Olympics two years ago. Her bronze came in the Olympics sexy new sport, Snowboard Slopestyle, in which Britain have actually turned out to be surprisingly good!


UP - Dan Evans - British tennis has been dominated in recent years by Andy Murray as well as the rise of Laura Robson and Heather Watson. But could there be a new kid on the block? At only 22, Evans has time on his side and this week rose to his highest career ranking of 123rd in the World. After upsetting Philipp Kohlschreiber and pushing Tommy Haas to three sets the Birmingham born star will be looking to push into the top 100 to cement a regular place at Grand Slams.

UP - Yulia Lipnitskaya - Sometimes sport just makes me sit and wonder what i've done with my life. Watching 15 year old Yulia Lipnitskaya produce two stunning figure skating routines was certainly one of those moments. The young Russian oozed class and maturity as she glided elegantly across the ice. Her two displays helped Russia win the team figure skating event, becoming the youngest Russian gold medalist in the history of the games in the process.

UP - Katarina Johnson-Thompson - In amongst all the Sochi madness, a new British star emerged on the athletics circuit. Johnson-Thompson made a name for herself after an enigmatic display at London 2012, finishing 15th in the Heptathlon at just 19 years of age. This week she took the British Indoor Championships by storm, collecting Gold in both the long jump and the high jump. More impressively, she broke the British high jump record, held by Debbie Marti since 1997. The next Jessica Ennis?

UP - Dama Schmieg - Now i'm sure a lot of you, like me, have got swept up by the Winter Olympic excitement. Now I doubt any of you have got quite as swept up as Dama Schmieg though. Schmieg has created an 150 yard luge course in his own back garden, which takes 45 seconds to get from start to finish. He has certainly become the coolest man in his neighbourhood after his creation, as many have flocked to have a go at the course.


DOWN - Johnny Quinn - They say lightning doesn't strike twice. Quinn would probably dispute that saying after a seriously unlucky opening few days in Sochi. First, Quinn got stuck in one of the toilets without a phone or any way of getting out. So naturally the American bobsled participant smashed his way out, breaking a hole through the door. But it gets worse, as today Quinn and his teammates got stuck in an elevator and had to be rescued. Is Sochi trying to tell him something?


DOWN - Joe Kinnear - The least surprising news in football occurred this week when Jo(k)e Kinnear left Newcastle at the start of last week. Asking people to judge him on his signings and then making not a single permanent signing wasn't a great start. Failing to pronounce the players names didn't help either. Attempting to sign one of his own players who was out on loan also wasn't a bright moment. The list of stupidity goes on. Newcastle fans will be counting their lucky stars that he is anywhere but at St James' Park.


DOWN - Anna Gasser - Poor Anna Gasser. The final woman left to run in the final of the Snowboard Slopestyle final. The only woman left who could get in the medals. Yet she managed to take all the tension out of the occasion with a seemingly unheard of false start. Tumbling down the hill before she was meant to, before comically failing to get back up it. Then when she did get going she crashed out. It just wasn't her day.


DOWN - David Moyes - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The pressure is building on the United manager as they conceded a last gasp equaliser to bottom-of-the-league Fulham at the weekend. The signing of Mata looked to be the rejuvenation  that Moyes needed but it has not had the desired impact and the strange tactic of sending in cross-after-cross was extremely unsuccessful. Moyes needs time, there is no doubt about that, but regardless, beating the bottom side in the League is pretty much a must for the new United boss.


DOWN - Kevin Pietersen - The curtain closes on a wonderful England career but not how anyone would have wanted. Pietersen was told by the ECB that he is no longer wanted in the team as his teammates do not trust him. He was also criticised for some of his dismissals during the recent Ashes tour, despite being the highest run scorer in the squad. It is a shame his England career has ended in such controversy as he had the potential to go down as one of the all time greats. Hopefully he still will.

Jenny Jones - A Star in Sochi

So the Winter Olympics have returned. Normally they come, then they go and we’re just grateful to take home any sort of medal. Last time out in Vancouver we had to wait eight days for Amy Williams to surge home with a gold medal in the skeleton. Our only medal as it turned out. This time though, something is different.

This time we’ve travelled to a Winter Olympics with a number of genuine title contenders. Ranging from curling to speed skating to the skeleton, we have a number of competitors at the top of their sport. Yet, prior to the games, few could have predicted that Jenny Jones would win a bronze medal in the Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle.

After watching her male compatriots Jamie Nicholls and Billy Morgan both make it to the final of the men’s competition, finishing 6^th and 10^th in the process, it was time for Jones to make her own mark. She took the lead after a second run of 87.25 but then had to wait anxiously as ten athletes aimed to topple her.

She slipped down to second, Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi scoring 92.50. Then she was beaten again, American Jamie Anderson scoring 95.25 to push her into bronze. With two competitors still to race it was out of her hands. The first competitor came and crashed out. One left. It was nail-biting stuff and probably wise that Jenny kept her gloves on. Anna Gasser, the last competitor, then also crashed out. It was a long and tense wait, but Jones had done it! She had won Britain’s first medal in Sochi and the first British medal ever won on snow at the Winter Olympics.

But who is Jenny Jones? Well Jenny was born and raised in Bristol, and didn’t get into snow sports until she was 17 when she undertook lessons at the dry ski slope in Churchill, Somerset. Her passion for snowboarding stemmed from a job working as a chalet maid in France the following year. Throughout her childhood she had actively engaged in both Athletics and Gymnastics so was naturally fit. This natural fitness combined with her raw talent meant that at just 19 she stormed to victory in her first British Snowboard Championship.

After this victory Jones’ knew she wanted to form a permanent career in snowboarding but struggled with funding due to the lack of support for winter sports in Britain. To fund her career Jones has held many part-time jobs including as a fencing instructor and cardboard inspector.  Yet hours of arduously examining cardboard paid dividends as Jones ended 2006 second in the World Snowboard Tour Rankings.

From here she was determined to cement her legacy, regularly competing in the Winter X Games, one of the most prestigious annual events in winter sport. She claimed the gold medal in both 2009 and 2010 and was unlucky not to complete the hat-trick in 2011 where she narrowly lost out to Enni Rukajarvi. A victory close to her heart occurred at the European Winter X Games in 2010 where she claimed a gold medal in Tignes, the town she had worked in as a chalet maid when she was younger.

And now here we are. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and a bronze medal wrapped gleefully around her neck. A feat made more impressive by the discovery that she considered retiring from the sport a few years ago before it was announced that Slopestyle would make its Olympic debut in Sochi and also that just three months ago she suffered heavy concussion after a huge fall in training.

She may not have won a Gold medal, but she is currently our Golden Girl. So rare is it that we can celebrate and enjoy Winter Olympic success and yet Jenny has delivered it after just two days. It is probably the first and last time we will see her at an Olympic games but she has left a lasting legacy. She will go down in the history books and perhaps more importantly, as Jenny herself said, she’ll be the answer to a few pub quiz questions from now on.