Honiton man has been selected for the Beijing Winter Olympics

Marcus Wyatt (aged 30) has been selected for the skeleton team for the Beijing Winter Olympics, which starts on 4 February. He will be travelling to Beijing to prepare for the competition in a few weeks' time.

Currently living in Bristol with his girlfriend Imogen, who is from Dalwood, Marcus spends the summer training at Bath University, whilst for sliding and competing he goes to Europe and North America.

He will be competing in the skeleton, a sport where one slides down an icy track headfirst at speeds of up to 95mph.

Competitors initially push their sled for twenty or so metres, before diving onto it and then using their body strength to steer the sled down the track.

For most races the winner is the person with the quickest time over an average of two runs, but for the Olympics it is over four runs.

Marcus first become involved in skeleton racing in 2014 whilst he was studying at the University of Swansea. He was in his final year and happened to see the Winter Olympics on the TV.

Britain's Lizzy Yarnold won gold and the coverage mentioned that there was a skeleton talent seeking program called power2podium. Marcus decided to apply and after ten months of trials he made the team in December 2014.

Marcus told Nub News: "Being selected for the Olympic games is an absolute dream come true. It's something I've wanted to do since I was a kid and it's not quite sunk in yet that I'm off to Beijing in a weeks' time.

"Ultimately at the Olympics I would love to come away with a medal. In October we had a test event on the track and I won silver so that's gives me a lot of confidence I can hopefully go back and do similar this time at the real thing.

"The biggest challenge will be how strong the field of athletes competing will be. There are multiple Olympic gold medallists and probably 10-15 people that could realistically be on the podium.

"My family and friends are all amazing, there's always so much support for me and after this announcement I'm going to the Olympics it has really been so awesome.

"My mum is still in Honiton and my dad is in Axminster and a lot of my friends are in the area as well so East Devon is full of support!"