Double victory for winter sports star
Comments |
A winter sports star from Kent is a junior world champion after
sliding her way to a gold medal.
West Kingsdown athlete Lizzy Yarnold, who competes in bob
skeleton, clinched the junior title with a strong performance at
the challenging Igls track in Austria.
Her victory comes just a week after she won gold at the World
Cup in St Moritz, Switzerland.
Speaking from a training camp in the Canadian resort of
Whistler, 23-year-old Lizzy said: "It's been a fantastic few
weeks.
"The world juniors were always my focus for this season as I got
the silver medal last year by a hundredth of a second.
"It went to a Canadian athlete who was a really great athlete
who'd had a lot of practice at the track and I'd only had about
eight runs there so I was really eager to do my best and win this
year."
Bob skeleton is one of the most dangerous winter sports.
Competitors descend down icy courses on tiny sleds with no
brakes, reacing speeds of more than 80mph.
Some skeleton tracks have bends which loop through a full 360
degrees, where athletes negotiate the equivalent of a two storey
high wall while battling intense G forces.
Lizzy, who is based at the University of Bath, said: "You accept
that you're going to be travelling quite fast. At the beginning of
the season, it's quite difficult to get your brain to work quickly
enough but the speed is not that bad.
"I had those sort of mad attributes when I was younger. I used
to go on all the scary rides at theme parks so my parents always
knew!"
Nigel Laughton, performance director at British Skeleton, added:
"It's been a great few weeks for us and I'm very proud of the
success we've had, especially Lizzy's.
"She was second last year and this result shows good
progression."
Wednesday, February 01 2012
The KM Group does not moderate comments.
Please click here for our house rules.