Welsh Olympian Mica Moore describes bobsleighing as “F1 on ice”.

It's a sport she knows well, having competed as part of a two-women bobsleigh team at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. But now she’s training for an even bigger challenge. Back then she was a breakwoman – to the uninitiated, that means the bobsleigher at the back – and for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan 2026 she’s looking to compete as a driver – that’s the bobsleigher in the front.

Helping Mica in her bid for Olympic glory are the lcv group, who have provided the Cardiff-based athlete with a van she has loaded up with gear for a winter of training in some of Europe’s most scenic snow-capped locations.

"It’s a whole new challenge for me,” says Mica.

“I leave at midnight and head to Norway for the start of my bobsleigh season. Then we’ll head to Germany and Austria before Christmas, and I’ll be competing on the Europa Cup circuit."

It will be gruelling few months of hard work in search of fractions of a second which can make all the difference when it comes to medals.

“I don’t think people realise the amount of work that goes in behind the scenes," she says.

"It’s like F1 on ice, and we do all the work – we move the sled, take it to the track, everything. That’s why a van is so important.”

It’s also dangerous, although maybe not quite as dangerous as other winter sports such as the skeleton and the luge. Does that mean you have to be crazy to compete? Not necessarily, but it does help.

“It’s a nuts sport, everybody is just trying to go faster and faster every time,” Mica explains.

“You have the real crazy people, the lugers, but they’re a separate entity. They asked to be separate to do things like go faster on ice. Bobsleigh and skeleton are under the same world-class program and are still pretty crazy. The fastest I think I’ve been is 92mph on ice, and obviously we don’t wear seatbelts in the back of the sled so if you crash you can come out of the sled."

Which is why preparation is key, and the practice begins long before they leave British soil for chillier climes.

“We do a lot of training at Bath University. They’ve got a dry slope where we just practice the start of the race. That’s where you build the speed and velocity for going down the track so it’s really important that you have someone strong and fast on the sled so you can run down the hill as far as possible. Then you get in, you load delicately so you build velocity, and that takes you down the track and you’ll be able to hit your top speeds. With a clean drive you’ll get there quickly.

“We try and do 200 pushes over the summer as a minimum. If you want to do something well you keep doing it until you can do it perfectly, and then hopefully when you’re in a competition you can replicate that. Every hundredth at the start matters so much more at the end.”

The facilities at Bath University also gives those thinking of giving the sport a go a chance to try it out first.

“All the new girls who came this summer, I said stop getting your nails done – they’re not going to last!” she laughs.

“Some people will get in, go down, and go ‘do you know what, I don’t like that’. But the training in Bath can be deceiving – I love it, you have fun there, but when you get on ice it’s very different. It’s nerve wracking, it’s scary, it’s like a rollercoaster, and I’m not someone who likes rollercoasters. I hate rollercoasters, I hate heights, everything you can be scared of I’m scared of, but I still do bobsleighing. I’m not sure I understand that one, but I am extremely competitive with myself so maybe that’s why I push myself to do it.”

And it is this determination that drives Mica on to achieve her next big goal: the next Winter Olympics.

“My goal would be to compete in Milan in 2026. They’re building a new track there which is very cool. That will mean the last three Olympics have had new tracks which levels the playing field, everybody is in the same boat having to learn a new track.”

For anyone thinking of following in Mica's footsteps, she has some simple words of advice.

“It’s just about putting yourself out there and getting in touch with British Bobsleigh. Throughout the summer they do recruitment days, and all you do is go down, have a go on a bobsleigh, and they have a metric system to see if you hit that point. You get to train with the team for the summer, do some testing.

“You don’t have to be the fastest, the strongest, the craziest, you have to have a little bit of each maybe, and nobody knows what combination makes the best bobsleigher. Just give it a go.”