Lizzy Yarnold:  'It can be an unsafe sport. But that's kind of what I love about it. It's tough'

Lizzy Yarnold 
Lizzy Yarnold says fear has to be your friend on the skeleton course Credit:  Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Here is an idea for a new television quiz show: try and guess the profession of a guest from their favourite pastime. First up: Lizzy Yarnold. It is a fair bet to suggest that, when you hear what she likes to do in her spare time, you would never imagine that she will, in 100 days, be flinging herself headfirst down an icy tube high up in the South Korean mountains at speeds of upwards of 80mph in defence of her Olympic skeleton bob title.

“I love a spreadsheet,” she says, as she sits in her training base at Bath University. “When I get my mortgage annual statement, I absolutely love to check it against my own calculations.”

In person, Britain’s foremost adrenalin athlete is nothing like you might imagine someone to be whose day job involves a continuous flirtation with danger. Not remotely unhinged, not apparently harbouring a death wish, the woman who has recently taken a degree in book-keeping has the organised, eminently sensible air of the head girl of a Kent grammar school she once was.

“It’s odd isn’t it?” she says of the yawning gap between reality and assumption. “But my dad knew I was like this when I was a little girl and we went to the Dome in 2000. There was a ride like a tower where you got dropped from a great height. I badgered him to let me go on it and when I got off, Dad was expecting me to be all flustered. Instead I said: can I go again?”

She has been riding a roller-coaster ever since, careering down icy runs across the globe. And, as she gears up to pursue a second successive gold medal, she admits that her day job has not got any less terrifying over the years.

Lizzy Yarnold
Lizzy Yarnold is aiming to become the first Briton to defend a Winter Olympics title successfully Credit: John Lawrence for The Telegraph

“I am often scared. Sometimes petrified,” she says. “I have a bit of an odd thing, when I put my helmet on I say to myself: why am I doing this, I don’t have to. But actually fear is your friend. You have to be awake, alive, need to be thinking quickly. The truth is, it can be an unsafe sport. But that’s kind of what I love about it. It’s tough.”

And during the danger of the track, Yarnold’s inner accountant comes into its own. Her rational, organised nature helps her enormously as she prepares to push her sled out on to the ice.

“I’ve learned to stay calm. It’s like relaxed aggression,” she says. “You have to keep your head. You need pinpoint focus, you need your peripheral vision filtering constantly. When you’re on the track, you’re not just using your eyes, you are using the sense of smell, the pressure in your chest, you’re feeling the G-forces in your neck and chest and arms. It’s a real orchestra of information.”

It’s a wonderfully evocative phrase: an orchestra of information. And over the past four years Yarnold has proved an expert in processing the orchestra’s output. A sports science graduate, her approach is meticulous, analytical, thorough. “Yes, I am a nerd,” she laughs. “I think we all are. I’m not the technical specialist, I put my trust in those departments. But I know we are at the cutting edge and I’m fascinated by the advances in sled design. When I’m on the start line, trying to feel as relaxed as possible, it really helps to know you have the best underneath you.”

She calls her sled – designed with the assistance of the McLaren Formula One Team – Mervyn, after a former work colleague.

“I used to work in insurance before I became Lottery funded. Back in 2010, I couldn’t afford to buy a £26 runner bag and I put a pot in the office kitchen with a note attached saying I need money. Mervyn came over and asked me about it. I gave him the full spiel about how one day I’d love to be at the Olympics. He didn’t say anything, just took an envelope out of his pocket and gave it to me. There was £200 in it. He is someone who believed in me who didn’t really know me. He has been a wonderful support.”

Lizzy Yarnold
Yarnold happily concedes she is a nerd when it comes to sled design Credit: John Lawrence for The Telegraph

His support enabled her to train alongside Amy Williams, her predecessor as Olympic champion. As much as her hi-tech sled it was that, she says, that transformed her from wannabe into contender.

“Trying to keep up with Amy in the gym made me realise I could do it. I saw she wasn’t superhuman as I thought she must be, she was a normal person. So if she can do it, why can’t I?”

Yarnold hopes she will further follow in Williams’ footsteps as an inspiration to the next generation of British skeleton crews. “We have 25 athletes on the programme and I’ve never seen such numbers or such quality. It really makes me emotional to see that they, too, could live out their dreams. I’m a believer everyone improves if you push each other. We share, we all learn from each other and get better together.”

Indeed, she believes as she begins her final preparations for South Korea that she has never been in better shape, despite a recent diagnosis of an inner-ear complaint that can make her feel nauseous at the end of a descent.

“I hate to say the cliche of four more years’ experience, but I have learned so much. It hasn’t always been easy. But physically – regardless of those issues – I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been.”

And Lizzy Yarnold should know: doubtless she has plotted her progress on a spreadsheet.

 

License this content