Lizzy’s back on gold trail without her biggest supporter

Husband designed her 2014 gold-medal sled but now he works for Ben Ainslie

LIZZY YARNOLD may have been Britain’s sole champion at the last Winter Games in Sochi but there is an argument that she is not even the most successful Olympian in her own home.

The 29-year-old skeleton racer will bid to add to her tally in PyeongChang, but her husband, James Roche, has already been the architect of two golds: Yarnold’s in 2014 and Amy Williams’s shock win in the same event at the preceding Games in Vancouver.

Having helped design the cuttingedge sled that propelled Yarnold to Olympic glory with Rachel Blackburn while at McLaren Applied Technologies, he is now fully focused on Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup campaign.

So Roche’s role in Korea will solely be as a cheerleader.

“I try not to get too involved now,” he says, admitting that sometimes he has to bite his tongue. “I’m purely a spectator. The last thing Lizzy needs is someone pitching up from the outside with half the information, so I stay clear of that sort of that thing.”

However, Yarnold says there are times when her husband of 18 months wants to give his insights.

She adds: “I think it’s a bit like when I was a teenager and my mum would come to athletics competitions and would say, ‘You just need to get your lead leg up or down’. James has said a couple of times, ‘I’ve been thinking of things but don’t want to add anything’ and he hasn’t.”

Valentine’s Day marks four years since the couple’s gold rush and this year it falls a day before her competition gets under way. Yarnold recalls how in Sochi, the couple’s relationship unfolded in front of the world’s cameras.

She had the foresight to give a Valentine’s card to Blackburn, still her

‘I tried to cross the track and pass my Valentine’s card to James. As I did, every camera turned’ Lizzy Yarnold

sled technician to this day, for safekeeping.She says: “I’d just finished the race and she said, ‘Here’s your card for James’. I tried to pop across the ice track and pass it to him, but as soon as I walked across, every camera turned. It was so embarrassing.”

The pair had made their relationship public from the outset to ensure no arguments of favouritism among competitors within the British camp.

“We had to make sure that if we entered into this it had to be worthwhile in a very stressful time and everyone was clear and happy with the situation,” she explains. “Thankfully everyone was very supportive.”

Working in the set-up together since 2009, they didn’t exactly hit it off straight away, Yarnold joking that was partly down to her husband’s dual personality.

Roche admits “I was probably a bit stern”, while Yarnold butts in “he has a work side and a home side and in his work side, he doesn’t smile!”

But Roche disagrees. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he insists, smiling as if to emphasise the point.

Having worked so closely, it is inevitable there have been some flashpoints. Yarnold adds: “I’m a perfectionist and like things done properly.”

Now, with different sporting ambitions, their lives have become complicated. In June, Yarnold followed Roche to Bermuda for what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to win the America’s Cup for Britain for the first time.

In November, Roche travelled the World Cup circuit with his wife. Christmas brought a glimmer of normality, the pair spending 10 days in the UK for the first time in memory, a welcome respite, Yarnold says, with things “going full pelt”.

Her season to date has been hugely inconsistent, with results ranging from finishing third to 23rd, yet gold still remains the aim.

She says: “Results are not where I want them to be but I had hefty snowfall in one race and fell off the sled in

‘I fell off the sled in Whistler — it turns out going down on your arm doesn’t make you a very fast racer’

Lizzy Yarnold

Whistler — and it turns out going down on your arm doesn’t make you very fast! But I’m certainly a better slider than I was four years ago.”

Four years ago, she recalls thinking she had no answer to beating Noelle Pikus-Pace, only to win by almost a second, a huge margin in skeleton. New racing suits are expected to help her go faster, while the experience of winning Olympic gold is something none of the rest of the field can boast.

“Sometimes it’s okay to be the underdog and not be what I was four years ago or even a year ago,” she admits. “But this season’s given me a lot of grit.”

As for Roche, asked whether winning the America’s Cup or being an architect of Winter Olympic gold would mean more, he says, diplomatically, he “wouldn’t separate the two”.

But in a flash, Yarnold says: “It would be the America’s Cup!”