LAURA’S AN OLYMPIC ICE QUEEN
LAURA Dea Deas won a bronze medal in the th women’s skeleton in an historic day for Team GB at the Winter Olympics. The 29-year-old 29-year from Wrexham won the th medal alongside skeleton skele team-mate Lizzy Yarnold Ya – who became the t first Briton to defend a Winter Olympics titl title. The women’s efforts at th the Pyeongchang Oly Olympic Sliding C Centre took Britain’s medal count yesterday to th three, following Iz Izzy Atkin’s ski sl slopestyle bronze. It is the first time ever B Britain have won three Winter W Olympic medals in the same day, day overtaking the record two from Chamonix Chamo in 1924. Britain have match matched their record Winter Games medal tally of four with plenty of further opportunities o to come. Laura Deas claimed claime her bronze by 0.02 seconds with a final fi run of 51.91. She was pushed in into third position after an average final fin run from Austrian Janine Flock, w who came in with 52.12. Deas began her career c in skeleton back in 2009, through the UK Sport talent programme, Girls4 Girls4Gold. This year marked her h first appearance in a Winter Games, Gam having repre- sented Great Britain at all three World Championships since Sochi.
She said: “I didn’t think I’d done enough. I knew my only chance was that Janine was going to make a mistake.
“I didn’t really want to believe it was actually going to happen until she crossed the line and I saw that she dropped behind me and I just couldn’t believe it. I thought ‘this must be a mistake’.
“I can’t believe I am part of a Super Saturday, I never thought I’d be saying that. I’m just extremely proud to be part of an historic day.”
For Deas it was the realisation of a dream. She recalled a message she received from Yarnold when her friend and team-mate won in Sochi.
She said: “She sent me a message saying that she wished I could have been there with her.
“It’s been a long four years but I knew that I could do that and I just had to keep believing.
“I can still remember exactly what it said. I’m just so glad that I could be here this time around.”
Yarnold said: “After the first run yesterday I was almost at the point of pulling out. My chest infection was stopping me from breathing.
“I just tried to get the second run down and then fight another day today. If it wasn’t for my physio Louise Turner telling me to go down again, I’m not sure I would be here today.”
She added: “I dreamt a couple of nights ago that we were both on the podium together, but I was too worried to tell her that I’d foreseen it. We were both on there. I think I was first.
“I’m just overwhelmed. I’m so happy. We will be on each other’s mantelpieces forever more.”
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