McNeill primed for World Championship outing

The duo will compete against 17 other crews from seven other countries as the ten-day Championships get underway in Igls, Austria.

McNeill, a Winter Youth Olympics silver medallist in 2012, and DeRatt are currently ranked 14th in the world, while they finished seventh in last week's European Championships in St Moritz.

McNeill also finished fourth at January's Junior World Championships alongside Aleasha Kiddle and insists she is ready and raring to get going in Austria.

"All of the hard work we've done in the summer and all of the races so far this season have all been leading up to this point," McNeill told British Bobsleigh and Skeleton.

"I started off on the Europa Cup circuit this season, building my knowledge and continuing to learn with Dominik (Head Coach, Dominik Scherrer), and we then moved on to the World Cup to see where we were at, with the whole season built for this race.

"The partnership with Natalie might be quite new but we've had plenty of races to get to know each other as Natalie got involved at the end of the summer.

"I feel like we've spent enough time together to work well as a pair, and that's the same with Aleasha (World Championship reserve, Kiddle) as well - the three of us get on really well and work well together as a team."

Sportsbeat 2016