Lizzy fully motivated for gold run

Winter Olympics

Sporting a new haircut which she describes as ‘aerodynamic', Lizzy Yarnold is as ready as she’ll ever be to defend her Olympic skeleton title. The Games get under way today (Thursday) in South Korea, with Yarnold seeking to become the first Briton to retain a Winter Olympic gold medal when the women’s skeleton starts on Friday, February 16. It’s been a long road since Sochi 2014 for the former Maidstone Grammar School for Girls pupil (right). The inevitable celebrity status post-gold medal, followed by a break from the sport two years ago, put her on the back foot. But not long after the 29-yearold returned to the gruelling training regime, there was no doubt in her mind that she belonged there. “If I hadn’t taken that year off I wouldn’t be sitting here now,” she said. “So I knew I had to take that time away to re-boot, to find that motivation – to go to PyeongChang. “A couple of months after taking time off, I went out and in my handbag was a bottle of water, a yoghurt, a cereal bar and some beef jerky and I thought: ‘Yeah, I’m still an athlete’. “It certainly was odd walking into a room, making sure that I smiled at everyone, making sure I was on my best behaviour. “But once it settled back down to normal and I could be Lizzy the skeleton athlete, that’s my whole focus and love and is sort of my happy place.” Yarnold is seemingly hitting form at just the right time with a fourth place in the Konigssee World Cup last month. Yet that is still some way off the spectacular heights of 2014-15 – when she won every major accolade in just 407 days. But finishing ninth in the overall World Cup standings this season has provided some timely motivation. Yarnold said: “It’s certainly been up and down. It was a good, tough reminder that sport is challenging and that anything can happen on competition day. “But I made myself remember what I was good at and why I was a good, intuitive slider – by not over-thinking things. “It was just sort of ‘OK, I’ve got a couple of races, I’ve got a couple of weeks, I need to start remembering how I love skeleton’. “So that fourth place wasn’t just about the fourth place it was just that I felt more relaxed and confident.” There might be something in the number four for Yarnold – she was fourth on the Olympic track in the test event last year. But what she is counting on for sure is her love of the Olympic competition and she expects to come to the boil in the PyeongChang pressure cooker. She said: “To know that I have been to the Olympics, to know that I love competing over four runs, two days, it’s about being consistent. “Having that knowledge and the trust from the team makes me feel confident. “It’s about remembering how to be good in PyeongChang, how to learn quickly from that track and how to communicate and have eye contact with my coaches, so that everything is on point for the one race that counts.”