145km/h VR: Brendan Doyle's skeleton racing edge

Feeling a little sad because the Tokyo Olympics finished last week? I am too. With so much of life in lockdown right now we had a great timezone match up here in Australia to enjoy the event, and while there was no one in the stands it was great to see it happen in the midst of such a tough time for the world.

In good news, you won't have to wait much longer for your next hit of Olympics action because the Beijing 2022 Winter Games is actually just months away – it kicks off February 4.

And this week on Byteside we're talking to one of the Irish athletes preparing for those winter games in one of the craziest sports ever conceived. Brendan Doyle is an Irish skeleton racer – that's the one where they throw themselves face first down the high-speed ice track.

I'm speaking to Brendan because it turns out that virtual reality headsets are actually a fantastic way to practice and visualise tracks when you're not on the actual track. So in this chat we talk about his choice of sport, his arrival at using VR gear to help up his game, and how having a headset for training offers other benefits to his routine.

You can go find him yourself online too, he's @facedoyle on Twitter and slidingirish.com is his home on the web.