Lizzy Yarnold

Early and personal life

Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, Yarnold was educated at St Michael's Preparatory School, an independent school in the village of Otford, Kent. followed by Maidstone Grammar School for Girls in the Kent county town of Maidstone, where she became Head Girl. After undertaking UCAS clearing post her A Levels, Yarnold choose to study geography and sport and exercise science at the University of Gloucestershire.

Since taking up the skelton sled, Yarnold has lived in Bath, Somerset, initially in a flat owned by former skeleton athlete and Olympic gold medallist in the 2010 Winter Olympics, Amy Williams. Yarnold is in a long-term relationship with engineer James Roche, who whilst working for McLaren Applied Technologies was co-designer for Yarnold's sled. On 1 May 2016, Yarnold and Roche wed.

Introduction to skeleton

Yarnold was initially a heptathlete. She was inspired to take up the sport after watching Denise Lewis at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

In 2008, Yarnold took part in UK Sport's Girls4Gold talent search scheme. Initially she thought she would be suitable for a sport involving horses but UK Sport identified skeleton as a good option. She began competing in 2010; winning her first official race in the Europa Cup at Igls in November. The next day she had her second win.

In subsequent seasons Yarnold has honed her skeleton-racing skills, learned courses, and achieved the athletic performance required to compete at World Cup level. She finished the 2011/12 season in 9th position and became junior World Champion and a bronze medallist in the senior World Championships in 2012.

Her sled is named Mervyn after a former work colleague of hers, Mervyn Sugden.

2013/14 season

From the first world cup practice run of the Olympic season it was apparent that Yarnold had found a new level of competitiveness, consistently topping timing sheets. She won the opening race in Calgary in controversial circumstances when the US athlete Noelle Pikus-Pace was disqualified for a technical infringement. This set the scene for a season-long duel with Pikus-Pace. Yarnold eventually secured the World Cup Championship at the last race of the season in Königssee and the Olympic gold medal at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, ahead of Pikus-Pace by 0.97 seconds. The Olympic performance was remarkable as she had the fastest run of each of the four runs and set new track records on her first and third run. Yarnold's gold was the tenth gold medal ever achieved by British athletes in 90 years of Winter Olympics competition. It also ensured that Great Britain had won a medal in the Women's Skeleton in every Winter Olympics since the event was introduced.

Yarnold was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to skeleton racing.

2014/15 season

Following her success in the Olympics and World Cup, Yarnold completed a career grand slam in 2014/15 by becoming European Champion in February 2015 and World Champion the following month. She broke the track record at Winterberg twice in the course of her World Championship victory. She finished as runner-up to Janine Flock in that season's World Cup standings, winning five World Cup races and being defeated by a narrow margin of 20 points after missing the Calgary round of the series for health reasons.

In September 2015, Yarnold announced that she would take a year-long break and miss the 2015/16 skeleton season due to burnout.

FIBT rankings

Yarnold has ranked on the FIBT rankings since the 2010–11 season.