The research will be centred on an experimental programme in the Rock and Ice Physics Laboratory’s cold rooms at UCL and a fully funded PhD Studentship starting on September 1, 2010, has been made available to assist with the research.

The principal objectives of the project are to further understand the fundamental material properties of the friction of ice at high speeds and to understand the key controls on ice friction in regimes typical to winter sports such as skeleton and bobsleigh.

Due to the unusual properties of ice, these controls are currently poorly understood and under the instruction of UCL supervisors Professor Peter Sammonds and Dr Ben Lishman, the student selected to assist with the project will help engineer designs and under take tests to further understand how to reduce friction on ice and snow.

It is expected that the design work will be used by athletes at the 2014 Winter Games in Soch as Britain seeks to continue its impressive record in the bob skeleton.

The women have won a medal at every Games since the sport was introduced to the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City in 2002, culminating in Williams claiming the gold at Vancouver earlier this year.

A UK Sport spokesperson told insidethegames: "University partnerships are key to UK Sport’s Research and Innovation programme, which aims to help Britain’s best athletes be among the best prepared and most feared on the start line in Olympic and Paralympic competition.

"A key example of this came to fruition in Vancouver, where Amy Williams won gold on a sled that was designed by two PhD students from the University of Southampton.

"We, in partnership with University College London, are currently looking for a talented student to take on a PhD to continue a piece of work which began in the build up to Vancouver to optimise the runners on the skeleton sled.

"We hope this work will continue to benefit the British Skeleton programme as we head towards Sochi 2014.

"As the project evolves it could also benefit other winter sports with medal potential for Sochi."

Candidates hoping to apply for the PhD Studentship at UCL should have a good first degree in Engineering, Physics, Geophysics or a related discipline and can apply by contacting Dr Ben Lishman at: [email protected] 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]