Lizzy Yarnold, Britain's greatest Winter Olympian, has flung herself down an icy track for the final time.
After a career packed with drama, comebacks and – most importantly – two Olympic skeleton gold medals, Yarnold is finally ready to embrace the quiet life.
The 29-year-old become the first Brit to defend a Winter Olympic gold when she topped the podium in PyeongChang in February, four years after she had stood on the same perch in Sochi.
And, now that the dust has settled on her triumphs, Yarnold believes that it is the right time to hang up her sled.
“I didn’t want to quit because of injury or for the wrong reason,” she said.
“I know that I’ve had a really amazing time being an athlete, I’ve really enjoyed it - it’s so much better than I could’ve hoped for - and I think now I’m ready to try something new.
“I miss it already - it was a really difficult decision - but the motivation isn’t necessarily there because I have achieved more than I thought I could.”
Yarnold, a heptathlete in her youth, burst onto the scene with her performances in the 2013/14 World Cup Championship season, where she won four of eight races to take overall victory.
She therefore arrived in Sochi as one of the favourites, and duly delivered on expectations, recording the four fastest runs in the final - including two track records - to take gold.
And Yarnold admits that was the moment that changed everything for her; catapulting her from the track to national hero status and MBE recipient (before receiving an OBE four years later).
“Some people think I’m in their tennis club or their local church!” she continued.
“Everyone’s so kind - there are so many people that are sports fans and honestly many of them had never heard of skeleton before, but they just wanted me to know that they watched the skeleton, they were shouting at the telly.
“For that small fraction of their lives we kind of connected and they were with me in that moment, and that means a huge amount to me."
The Sevenoaks slider continued to dominate the sport heading into the following season, completing a career clean-sweep when she won first European and then world titles in 2015, but injury curtailed her remarkable streak.
She announced, in September 2015, that she would take a break from the sport in order to recuperate adequately in time for the business end of the Olympic cycle.
A successful return to the sled followed in 2016, before she took bronze at the 2017 World Championships in Konigssee as preparation for PyeongChang continued to ramp up.
But after a mixed 2017/18 World Cup season, her golden performance in South Korea ensured that GB kept up their remarkable record of medalling in the skeleton at every Winter Olympics in which sport has appeared.
And Yarnold was understandably hesitant when asked which of her two golds meant more to her, as both represent two completely different stages in her career.
“I know the one that I had to work hardest for was obviously PyeongChang, but it’s not as if
I didn’t have to work for Sochi, so I think as time passes it warps my memory,” she said.
“I’m equally proud of them both, but I think the one that was unexpected is PyeongChang, and that’s probably the more important message that I want to tell people is that we have setbacks in life, athletes are the same as any other human being.”
Yarnold is now looking forward to enjoying some valuable down-time away from the intensity of the skeleton track - but she conceded that she’ll still miss the routine of her sport.
“Even though training was horrible, there’s something about being in Lillehammer - where they are right now - getting in the bus, thinking that you don’t want to go to the training session and putting on a Beyoncé song, singing the whole way there,” she said.
“We’d get to the gym and do a power hour, absolutely slaughter yourself in the gym for an hour, and then you all get back on the bus and say ‘that was great, I can’t believe we did it!’
"It’s just that pure joy of being with each other, and camaraderie - I’ll definitely miss it.”
Sportsbeat 2018