How National Lottery funding built Britain’s skeleton champions

With the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games underway, the National Lottery organised the Winter Challenge – a play on “winter” – at the University of Bath. It was a chance to have some fun with the sport and shine a light on its investment in British winter athletes. We caught up with two of Britain’s greatest ever winter Olympians, Lizzy Yarnold and Laura Deas, to hear their story.

Home to the UK’s only bobsleigh and skeleton push-start track and built with National Lottery funding, this is where their careers were forged.

In 2008, Yarnold arrived as a young heptathlete through UK Sport’s Girls4Gold talent scheme, hoping to be selected for the modern pentathlon. She knew nothing about skeleton. By the end of that process, she was on a sled. When National Lottery funding came through shortly after, everything changed.

“The impact was huge,” she says. “I could stop my full-time job, finish university, and focus completely on sport and being the best that I could be.”

Through UK Sport’s World Class Programme, National Lottery funding gives athletes exactly that – the ability to train full-time, access the world’s best coaches, and benefit from pioneering sports science and medical support.

Yarnold went on to win skeleton gold at the 2014 Sochi Games, carrying the Great Britain flag at the closing ceremony. Then she did something no British Winter Olympian had ever done – she went back and won again.

The road to PyeongChang 2018 was far from straightforward. She competed through a serious chest infection, a vestibular disorder and an undisclosed knee tumour that would require surgery the moment the Games were over. On the final run, she set a new track record and took gold. When she retired, she was the only British Winter Olympian ever to have won two gold medals, honoured with both an MBE and an OBE.

A year later, the same Girls4Gold programme found Laura Deas. A hockey player and
competitive equestrian from Wrexham, she had represented North Wales on the pitch and
pursued eventing professionally before skeleton entered her life. Consider what that
transition means: swapping a horse for a sled, lying face-down and head-first with your chin millimetres from the ice, reaching speeds of over 90mph with no brakes and no mechanical steering — just bodyweight, nerve and instinct. National Lottery funding made that leap possible. At PyeongChang 2018, she finished third behind Yarnold to claim bronze. In doing so, she became the first Welsh woman ever to win a Winter Olympic medal.

That same Games, PhD student and Bath-trained Dom Parsons claimed bronze in the men’s event — meaning British skeleton won three of the six available medals at PyeongChang. Half the podium, from one track, one programme.

“I could not have done my skeleton journey without the National Lottery,” she says. “It
enabled me to stop working and train full time — that’s basically what gave me the ability to win my Olympic medal. I owe the National Lottery and the players that play it every single week my entire career.”

Ambassadors for a New Generation
On the day, Laura is back on the track — not racing but demonstrating the perfect skeleton push start to four influencers from across the fitness world, each attempting to master the technique that helped make her an Olympian. Lizzy, meanwhile, is watching and judging every attempt with the scrutiny of a double champion. It is one of a series of Winter Challenge events the National Lottery has planned as the nation gets behind Team GB —with a dry ski slope outing up next — and a fun way to celebrate the Games. It is also a reminder of what National Lottery players make possible.

Over £32 million is raised every week for good causes, with more than £200 million invested in winter sports since 1995 — supporting elite athletes and grassroots clubs from every nation of the UK and enabling champions to emerge from every community.

As athletes prepare to compete at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, both are watching closely. Lizzy is particularly excited about skeleton’s new mixed team event, making its Olympic debut at these Games.

“We are so on form and in shape,” she says. “There are going to be medals. I cannot wait.”

Laura, meanwhile, has a confession: “I always get really obsessed by the curling. I get so into it.”

Two women who had no idea what skeleton was. One talent identification programme. One track built with National Lottery funding. A heptathlete from Kent and a hockey-playing eventer from Wrexham – and between them, an Olympic podium that made history.

The moments that create champions rarely announce themselves. But the people of Britain are making them possible every single day.

Because of National Lottery players, Team GB and ParalympicsGB athletes can chase their dreams and ambitions as they compete at the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.