‘I’m incredibly proud to be an Olympian – but I want a medal’
completed her career grand slam by claiming world and European titles a year later, Deas was just another name farther down the field.
Now, finally, it looks like the table may have turned. Having returned from a year-long career break that she insists was vital in finding motivation to continue in the sport, Yarnold heads into these Winter Olympics placed ninth in the World Cup standings. Deas is two places above her in seventh.
There is a steely determination when Deas talks. Well accustomed to the rigours of top-level sport after a brief career as a professional eventer, the Wrexham-born slider has waited for her shot at glory and displays little emotion when talking of her podium aspirations.
“Going into my first Olympics, there will always be people with more experience than me, so I can’t look at that as a negative,” she says. “We have a rich history of skeleton athletes doing well in their first Olympics, so I feel like if I go and execute the plan I want to execute and perform as I have all season, I know I can get on the podium, and that’s definitely my intention. That’s where I want to be.
“I would be disappointed if I left without a medal. That’s just a fact. I am competitive and my entire career has been building towards this race. I’m incredibly proud to represent Team GB and become an Olympian, but I want to go one step further and be a medallist.”
Whether that remains a pipe dream will be determined by her performance on one of the most technically challenging tracks worldwide. Despite not making a World Cup podium this season, Deas finished inside the top 10 on five occasions to display the type of consistency that, she hopes, shows she can adapt to any type of track or conditions.
Yarnold, on the other hand, has mixed the brilliant with the dreadful. The reigning Olympic champion achieved an astonishing third-place finish at her first World Cup appearance last November after returning from a year out, during which she married, moved house and studied for an Open University course in book-keeping and accountancy. Results have fluctuated since, with 23rd, 13th, 16th and 19th-place finishes before a timely fourth at the final World Cup event last month.
“It would have been boring if I’d won every race – what would you have had to write about?” Yarnold says with a smirk. “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. I didn’t get disheartened when coming 23rd, or 16th or whatever. “It’s about remembering how to be good in Pyeongchang, how to learn quickly from that track and have everything on point for the one race that