Skeleton star Yarnold grabs Great Britain’s maiden gold
pyeongchang — Lizzy Yarnold picked the perfect time to end a three-year winless streak, and extended Britain’s dominance in women’s skeleton in the process.
Yarnold won her second consecutive Olympic women’s skeleton gold medal Saturday, leaving no doubt by setting a track record in the fourth and final heat to beat Germany’s Jacqueline Loelling by nearly a half-second. Yarnold’s time was 3 minutes, 27.28 seconds. Loelling finished in 3:27.73, and Britain’s Laura Deas was third in 3:27.90. It’s the third time since women’s skeleton was added to the Olympic program in 2002 that a nation grabbed two podium spots; the U.S. won gold and silver in 2002, and Germany took silver and bronze in 2010.
It was the first time Britain had two medalists in the same event at the Winter Olympics. There were two in the same figure skating event in 1908, when that sport was part of the Summer Games. “I dreamt a couple nights ago that Laura and I were on the podium together,” Yarnold said. “I didn’t tell Laura until just after, because I didn’t want to jinx it.”
It shaped up essentially as a match race going into the final heat, with five women separated by less than one-quarter of a second. But no woman in the field went faster than 51.82 seconds in that fourth run — except Yarnold, who capped her night by crossing the line in 51.46 seconds. That left Austria’s Janine Flock, the leader after three runs, as the only competitor left who could take away gold. But Flock was only 10th-fastest in the final heat, slipping all the way to fourth.—