NATWEST Jersey Bobsleigh team members Will Golder and Kevan Crowell make their Great Britain débuts as a development team in the Europa Cup next week.

The pair leave the Island tomorrow for back-to-back competitions in St Moritz in Switzerland and then on to Cesana in Italy. The Europa Cup circuit consists of eight races around Europe each winter and acts, together with a similar circuit in North America, as the initial step on to the international circuit for all bobsleigh competitors.

The St Moritz and Cesana circuits then lead on to the senior World Cup circuit and competitors from this circuit are those selected for European and World Championships as well as the Winter Olympics. Within the world circuit is the Junior World Championships where crews have to be under the age of 26 while the driver has to have completed three Europa Cup events on different tracks.

The forthcoming events could therefore take Golder (20) and Crowell (23) very close to qualifying for the Junior World Championships. Golder said: ‘This is our first international and first experience on the world circuit and it’s difficult to predict where we could finish. Our target is to be up there with the other GB crews and we know we can do that because we have trained really hard for eight months.’

• Picture: Kevan Crowell and Will Golder