British skeleton stars are banking on more top-secret innovations in Beijing to help them maintain a medal-winning streak that stretches back to the reintroduction of the sport into the Olympic programme in 2002.

Skeleton has yielded seven medals over the past five Games, including three in Pyeongchang in 2018, as the team banks on technological advances in order to mitigate the disadvantage of its minimal access to ice.

Aerodynamic skin-suits were credited with helping Lizzy Yarnold retain her women’s title four years ago, and perhaps more notably with lifting Laura Deas and Dom Parsons – ranked seventh and 12th respectively on their World Cup circuits – into bronze medal positions.

British Skeleton performance director Natalie Dunman has revealed further surprises concerning the sleds and race-suits used by the four-strong British team are in store in Beijing, with the full extent kept strictly under wraps until the opening race day on February 10.

Dunman said: “We are constantly trying to push the boundaries and edges of what we’re doing. Mainly we’re looking and sleds and suits, and we always keep a little surprise in store.

“It’s small innovations – it’s not something you’re going to say, ‘oh my God, it’s completely different’, because you’ve got to follow the rules. But they are things that we hope will make a difference.”

Britain has been at the forefront of innovation in the sport since it was reintroduced to the programme in 2002. World champion Kristan Bromley is a pioneer in sled design and helped produce the sled that swept Alex Coomber to bronze in Salt Lake City.

In 2010, the US team protested about a spoiler on the back of Amy Williams’ helmet midway through her surprise surge to gold in Vancouver, although the protests were swiftly dismissed by officials.

British Skeleton continues to benefit from close ties with technicians based at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, where innovations in sports such as cycling are shared across the range of summer and winter sports.

“We are really lucky that we benefit from the EIS system and we are 100 per cent playing by the rules at all times,” said Dunman, who denied that the British team were seeking an unfair advantage over their more traditional winter sports rivals.

“I think everybody uses their own advantage. We don’t have a track so we are very much up against it when it comes to competing against pretty much everyone else who is here.

“We are trying to use our own advantage in terms planning and preparations, in the ways that we coach, and the way that we design our kit. Every nation has some advantage over the others and you try to push it to the max.”

Marcus Wyatt won a World Cup silver medal in Latvia in November and later that same month, team-mate Matt Weston became the first British man to win a World Cup race since Bromley in 2008 when he triumphed against the odds in Igls.

Deas, by contrast, has had a low-key World Cup season, failing to secure a top-10 finish, but it is hardly surprising that she fancies her chances of stretching the British skeleton success story in Beijing.

“I am excited to bring out the big guns on race day,” said Deas, who had her first practice run down the track on Wednesday. “It is a bit of a confidence boost to know that we have this stuff to bring out during the Games.

“We’ve been able to punch above our weight for so many Olympics now, and it generates interest and maybe a bit of jealousy. But it is up to to other countries to take their advantages in different ways.”