Shropshire's Stu Benson nets Olympic call as he heads to Beijing

Benson has been selected as a coach for the Team GB Bobsled team for this month’s Winter Games in Beijing, China.

The 40-year-old will be able to call on medal-winning experience having claimed a bronze medal in the four-man bobsleigh in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics after the Russian teams were disqualified for doping a year later.

Benson’s call will see him take a break from his chief technician role at RAF Cosford, where he has recently been promoted to 1 School Technical Training. He will joined in China by fellow RAF trio Shanwayne Stephens (Jamaican bobsleigh team), Mark Silva (Jamaican bobsleigh coach) and Gavin Arnold (team GB luge coach).

“In my mind the reason the RAF produces good sledders and ice sports people is because the RAF is a good organisation that understands the value of sport and the impact on its personnel,” said Benson.

“I started bobsleigh in 2011, and have managed to get to this peak because of a mixture of things, but in the main due to the total support by the RAF, and that continues until this day.”

The trip to Beijing completes an impressive double for the Benson family after Stuart’s wife Sarah was a GB team manager at the Tokyo Olympics for the GB Paralympian team.

The couple, who live in Shifnal, are both coaches and competing athletes for Telford Athletic Club.

Sarah coaches middle distance runners and former sprinter Stuart, who represented the RAF athletics team in the long jump and triple jump, coaches sprinters and jumpers.