Four skeleton athletes who train at the University of Bath, including defending champion Lizzy Yarnold and student Dom Parsons, have today been selected by Team GB for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
Laura Deas and Jerry Rice will make their Olympic debuts at the Games, which are being staged in South Korea from February 9-25 – the skeleton medals will be decided on February 16 and 17.
The quartet compete for the British Bobsleigh & Skeleton Association (BBSA), based at the University, and do their UK training on the country’s only outdoor push-start track and in the high-performance gym at the Sports Training Village.
Yarnold, who memorably struck women’s skeleton gold at Sochi 2014, is one of four sliders to win medals at the Winter Olympic Games since the push-start track was first opened in 2001. Alex Coomber took bronze in Salt Lake City in 2002, Shelley Rudman claimed silver in Turin in 2006 and University graduate Amy Williams was famously crowned champion at Vancouver in 2010.
Both Yarnold – who finished fourth at last week’s IBSF World Cup meeting in Konigssee – and Deas, currently ranked seventh in the world, will be looking to continue that stunning run of podium success in the women’s competition, both having came through the successful Girls4Gold talent identification programme.
Making his second Olympic appearance in the men’s skeleton is Parsons, a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at the University who finished tenth at Sochi 2014. He is joined by Rice, the 2016-17 Intercontinental Cup Champion who has competed in seven of the eight World Cup races this season.
For more information on skeleton at the University of Bath, visit www.teambath.com/skeleton.
Report courtesy of the Team Bath press office at Matchtight
