Despite a relatively poor start to the season, Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold can still create history by defending her title next year according to her predecessor Amy Williams.

Bath-based Yarnold lies tenth in the overall World Cup standings after three rounds following third, eighth and 23rd-place finishes so far.

The latest lowly ranking came after an early hit on the wall at the track in Whistler this weekend, meaning she did not qualify for the second run and resulted in much head shaking and hand-wringing in the aftermath.

But Bath’s Williams, who won skeleton gold at Vancouver 2010, four years before Yarnold, is still backing her compatriot for a medal at PyeongChang 2018.

“She’s definitely still a medal contender. Her start to the season may not have been so good, but in our sport you do test a lot of things,” she said.

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice races to test different bits of runners or other equipment.

“Just because she hasn’t done quite as well so far, it’s early days and there is a long season ahead before the Olympics in February.

“I still think she’ll come shining through towards the end.”

Should Yarnold go on to win gold in PyeongChang, that would make her the first skeleton athlete to successfully defend an Olympic title.

Britain have won a medal in every Olympics since women’s skeleton was introduced to the schedule at Salt Lake City in 2002.

The last two Games Team GB have come back with gold, and Williams is not ruling Yarnold out from repeating her achievement of four years ago in Sochi, Russia.

Hot on her heels though are Laura Deas and Ashleigh Pittaway, with the trio all training together in Bath.

Deas may not have stepped onto the podium yet this season but she is ahead of Yarnold in the World Cup standings – currently sitting in sixth while 17-year-old Pittaway is making her debut on the senior circuit this season.

She qualified for a second run for the first time in Whistler, and Williams thinks a competitive training environment can only spur them all on to further success.

“When your teammates are succeeding it pushes you. To have a strong group of girls who are travelling together, you all want to beat each other,” added Williams, speaking at the annual SportsAid SportsBall in London.

“You want to beat the Canadian, Germans, Americans, but actually you really want to beat your own teammate.

“Because ultimately you’re fighting for places on the team. There are only two places for PyeongChang and you really want to fight, to beat each other.

“And yet you’re learning from each other all the time, and if they communicate and support each other then hopefully it will result in a bond and friendship, but produce good competition too.

“If you’re striving to always want to beat your neighbour, then there’s no better thing.”

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