THE freezing grip of winter may be loosening, but a North-East man has ice on his mind as he prepares to push himself to glory as part of Great Britain's bobsleigh team.

John Jackson, originally from Barnard Castle, has quickly become established in the bobsleigh team despite only taking up the sport 18 months ago.

He now has his sights firmly set on the Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver in 2010.

The 29-year-old is a corporal in the Royal Marines and took up the sport after deciding to give it a go at a test track in Bath.

He said: "I just woke up one morning and said to myself: 'I want to have a go at bobsleigh.' I had watched the Olympic Games in 1998 when the GB team got bronze and thought about it then because one of the guys on the team was a Marine.

"But I was playing football quite a bit at the time so I decided to just stick with football. But I decided to give it a go and I did quite well in some time trials and it just started from there."

Cpl Jackson, a former Teesdale School student, joined the Royal Marines almost ten years ago and is now based in Ipswich.

He has been given time off by the Marines in order to train for national and international competitions, but because there are no bobsleigh tracks in the UK he and his team have to look further afield.

He said: "There's a training track at Bath University which allows you to practice running with the sled, but we have to go to Europe or North America to do full training sessions."

He has recently come back from the world championships in Switzerland, where he finished ninth as part of the GB2 team.

But Cpl Jackson, who races in the two-man and four-man bob, admits the team's eyes are firmly on the Olympics in three years.

"The Olympics are in 2010 and I think everybody in the team wants to be involved because it's such a big occasion."

Cpl Jackson and the GB team are looking for sponsorship for the events they race in. Anyone interested should visit www.bobteamgb.org.