“Amazing feeling” as rising British Skeleton star Amelia Coltman caps dream debut season with Europa Cup crown
University of Bath-based Amelia Coltman became the first Brit to win the overall Europa Cup title in her first season of competitive sliding as her dream start to her skeleton career continued on Saturday.
Coltman – who is well known to young school pupils visiting the Sports Training Village thanks to her work with Team Bath Tribe – backed up her bronze medal in Friday’s race in Altenberg, Germany, with fourth place on Saturday to secure the overall victory.
The 23-year-old collected five medals in total across the last two months, winning two gold, two bronze and a silver.
Lizzy Yarnold, Britain’s most successful Winter Olympian, won overall EC silver in her debut season in 2010/11 and Brogan Crowley won gold in 2017/18 two years into her international career but Coltman is the first to finish top of the standings in her very first season of competition.
“It’s an amazing feeling to be overall EC Champion, I never imagined I’d be saying that at the start of the season!” said Coltman, who joins an illustrious list of winners that includes reigning World Champion Tina Hermann.
🏆 OVERALL EC CHAMPION 🏆
Can't believe I've achieved this in my first racing season, and only competing in 7 out of 8 races on the circuit makes it even more special! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/jsUcjZgqe7
— Amelia Coltman (@acoltman) January 26, 2020
“I’m really proud to have won for my country – it’s something I always dreamt about doing and it feels just as good as I hoped it would.
“It’s been a brilliant couple of months and I want it to be a platform to kick on from. Hopefully this is just the start for me but I’m not the type of person who’ll be getting carried away with this.
“Big thanks to all my coaches who have helped me get here – I definitely couldn’t have done it without them.”
A county badminton doubles champion and national mixed doubles champion in tennis prior to joining the British Skeleton programme at the University of Bath in the summer of 2017, Coltman only made her racing debut at the beginning of December.
Fellow Brit Hannah Stevenson placed seventh overall after winning the opening race of the season seven weeks ago. Rachel Hanagan finished 19th having only competed in six of the eight races in her debut season.
In the men’s competition, Matt Weston led the way for Great Britain by finishing eighth overall. Just like Coltman, the former Junior England Taekwando international won bronze on Friday.
Benji Fulker and Laurence Bostock finished 16th and 17th in the standings.
British Skeleton athletes train on the UK’s only outdoor push-start track at the University of Bath, as well as the high-performance gym and athletics tracks at the Sports Training Village. Click here to find out more.
