Great Britain’s 20-year-old streak of Olympic medals in the women’s skeleton is over after a calamitous start by Laura Deas and Brogan Crowley in Yanqing on Friday.

Deas and Crowley sit 21st and 22nd respectively after the first two runs of the event which concludes on Saturday, with the pair only besting athletes from South Korea, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Deas stormed to an unexpected bronze medal behind Lizzy Yarnold in Pyeongchang four years ago and, despite an indifferent World Cup season, she was confident that recent equipment upgrades could give her another glimpse of the podium.

But Deas struggled down her two runs, finishing a total of 1.80 seconds off leader Jaclyn Narracott of Australia, with Crowley, competing at her first games, a further 0.41 seconds behind.

Deas said: “That’s certainly not the outcome I wanted. I think I slid very well today. I came to the start block in a great frame of mind. I put together two good runs that I think I can be proud of.

“I can’t tell you right now why the speed wasn’t there. I don’t know. I think I did myself proud. I’ve worked incredibly hard for the last four years to get to the start block today, and I feel like I did execute exactly what I wanted to do.”

Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt sit in 13th and 17th places respectively midway through the men’s event, which is set to conclude with its final two runs late on Friday night.