ADELE Nicoll heads to Innsbruck this weekend as she takes the next step in her burgeoning bobsleigh career.

The Welshpool shot putter has set her sights on representing Great Britain in the Beijing Winter Olympics next year having impressed in trials.

The 24-year-old now heads to Austria for the start of the World Cup season with the aim of sealing the position of breakwoman to Mica McNeill who will bid to improve on Britain’s eighth position finish in the last Games.

The World Cup season began in Innsbruck on Saturday, although Nicoll won’t get her campaign up and running until the second event, which also takes place in the Austrian city next weekend.

Nicoll is one of three women vying to become McNeill’s brakewoman in Beijing, providing the British squad can qualify the sled for China.

Nicoll faces stiff competition from fellow Welsh athlete Mica Moore, McNeill’s team-mate in Pyeongchang in 2018, and former Olympic sprinter Montell Douglas.

With the final decision on McNeill’s partner for Beijing not being made until mid-January, the British trio know it’s all going to be about impressing the selectors during the World Cup.

County Times: Adele Nicoll warms up for Innsbruck.

Adele Nicoll warms up for Innsbruck.

Nicoll said: "I got into the bob a handful of times last season, the rest of the time I was training.

“My first actual bobsleigh run was in Sigulda, Latvia, and Mica McNeill was great, she really helped me a lot.

“I learnt so much in the first year and really applied myself, and then I went to the trials in Bath for this season and got in the squad again.

Nicoll said: “My first World Cup race should be next weekend. I did the Beijing Olympic test event but Innsbruck will be my first proper race for Great Britain.”

If Nicoll does land the place in the bob for Beijing then it would complete the first part of a what could be a remarkable double in 2022.

The shot putter has thrown the qualifying standard for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on three occasions.

Two of those, including a new personal best of 17.17m, were at the National Athletics League Premier North meeting in Nottingham in late August.

“It would be incredible to go to the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games next year, but it’s very much one step at a time for now,” added Nicoll, who had to lose 15kg to compete in the bob.

“A year ago, I said that even if nothing came of the bobsleigh, at least I tried and gave my all trying but because of the progress I have made, competing in both events  does become more realistic each day.”