Winter Olympic medallist Laura Deas retires from skeleton

Deas won bronze for Team GB at Pyeongchang 2018 behind teammate and gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold

Laura Deas won bronze at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics (Getty Images)

Winter Olympics bronze medallist Laura Deas has announced her retirement from skeleton seven years after her podium finish at Pyeonchang 2018.

The Wrexham-born slider finished third in South Korea as Great Britain secured two medals, with Deas sharing the podium with Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold.

The 36-year-old finished 19th at the next Games in Beijing before missing the 2023-24 season to give birth to a daughter.

But having attempted a return to World Cup racing, Deas has now called time on her career, with her final race a silver-medal winning slide at a World Cup event in Latvia in 2023.

"Immediately after the Beijing Olympics, I wanted to at least do one more season because I didn't want to leave the sport on that note because they (the Beijing Games) hadn't gone so well," Deas told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

"So I definitely knew that I had at least one more season in me from that point onwards.

"But in my head, it was quite an open-ended situation. I didn't really have a hard end point in mind, and I think partly that was because I didn't really want to approach any race knowing for sure that it was going to be the last time I ever stepped on ice. Because the thing about our sport, really, is that there's no way to just do it recreationally.

“I managed to win a medal [at her last race], which was a lovely sign off. So I was thinking, 'well, if this is the last time I set foot on ice, what a nice way to do it'.”

Laura Deas (left) shared the 2018 Winter Olympics podium with teammate Lizzy Yarnold (Getty Images,)

Deas had combined with Matt Weston to secure team silver at the World Championships in St Moritz earlier in 2023.

Her Olympic bronze medal continued Team GB’s outstanding record in the skeleton since the women’s event was added to the Winter Games in 2002.

Alex Coomber and Shelley Rudman secured bronze and silver respectively in 2002 and 2006, before Amy Williams kicked off a run of three consecutive Olympic champions from Great Britain in 2010 with Yarnold securing back-to-back successes.

Weston, meanwhile, is tracking well ahead of the men’s event at Milan-Cortina Olympics next year, securing back-to-back overall World Cup wins.