Sport: winter snow, ice and Bath’s push track

The University of Bath has the UK’s only bobsleigh and skeleton push-start track opened in 2002 and athletes training at the University have won medals at all but one of the Winter Olympic Games staged since then. The bobsleigh squad at Sochi 2014 of John Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon won bronze after two Russian teams were disqualified for doping offences while Paula Walker and Rebekah Wilson, won the 2011 World Junior Championship. In the skeleton, Alex Coomber won bronze at Salt Lake City in 2002 and Shelley Rudman took silver at Torino 2006 and Amy Williams made took gold at Vancouver 2010. Lizzy Yarnold succeeded Amy as Olympic champion at Sochi 2014 and became the first skeleton athlete to defend her title at PyeongChang 2018, where team-mates Laura Deas and Dom Parsons also won bronze medals.