Amelia Coltman: Team GB star on her retirement from skeleton

"The fire in my belly had gone out."

Team GB's Amelia Coltman said the decision to retire from skeleton after nearly a decade of elite competition was "surprisingly straightforward".

Her decision to leave the sport after nine years came just five months after she raced to a top-10 finish at her first ever Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina.

"I feel very at peace with my career and what I have achieved," Coltman, 30, said.

"After the Olympics I definitely took some time to myself to have a real good think about what I wanted, if there was anything more I wanted to achieve and what was giving me fire in my belly.

"I got back into training and realised the fire in my belly had gone out and there was nothing I was kind of striving to achieve in the end."

Family support proved crucial. Her parents - both former high-level cyclists - understood the process of athlete retirement.

"I've got two people on my side that have been through athlete career retirement. Who better to speak to?" she said.

Looking back, Coltman says she is prouder of the person she became than the medals she collected. She arrived in the sport in 2017 as a newcomer who had previously played tennis.

"When I started I was a very shy person, wasn't very confident. The transformation for me as a person has been absolutely massive. That's what I can walk away with.

"Yes, I've got European Championship medals and World Cup medals but it's been such a journey as a person."

Injuries tested her resilience severely. Three foot surgeries in 18 months left Amelia recovering for nearly three years - a third of her entire career.

"It would have been so easy to just throw the towel in but I'm a very stubborn individual. I knew I wanted that Olympic place and that's what kept me going."

Her early success in the sport was rapid. In her first season of international competition, she became the first Briton to win the Europa Cup title after collecting bronze, silver and gold in her opening three races.

The Olympics, however, remained the constant target.

"Everything was practising for those four heats," she said. "The Olympics for us is the pinnacle."

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