Education
Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, Yarnold was educated at Street Michael"s Preparatory School, an independent school in the village of Otford, Kent.
Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, Yarnold was educated at Street Michael"s Preparatory School, an independent school in the village of Otford, Kent.
Followed by Maidstone Grammar School for Girls in the Kent county town of Maidstone, where she became Head Girl. After undertaking UCAS clearing post her A Levels, Yarnold choose to study geography and sport and exercise science at the University of Gloucestershire. Since taking up the skelton sled, Yarnold has lived in Bath, Somerset, initially in a flat owned by former skeleton athlete and Olympic gold medallist in the 2010 Winter Olympics, Amy Williams.
Yarnold is in a long-term relationship with engineer James Roche, who whilst working for McLaren Applied Technologies was co-designer for Yarnold"s sled, whom she is presently engaged to marry in May 2016.
Yarnold was initially a heptathlete. She was inspired to take up the sport after watching Denise Lewis at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In 2008 Yarnold took part in United Kingdom Sport"s Girls4Gold talent search scheme. Initially she thought she would be suitable for a sport involving horses but United Kingdom Sport identified skeleton as a good option.
She began competing in 2010.
Winning her first official race in the Europa Cup at Igls in November. From the first world cup practice run of the Olympic season it was apparent that Yarnold had found a new level of competitiveness, consistently topping timing sheets. This set the scene for a season-long duel with Pikus-Pace.
Yarnold eventually secured the World Cup Championship at the last race of the season in Königssee and the Olympic gold medal at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, ahead of Pikus-Pace by 0.97 seconds.
The Olympic performance was remarkable as she had the fastest run of each of the four runs and set new track records on her first and third run. She broke the track record at Winterberg twice in the course of her World Championship victory.
She finished as runner-up to Janine Flock in that season"s World Cup standings, winning five World Cup races and being defeated by a narrow margin of 20 points after missing the Calgary round of the series for health reasons. In September 2015 Yarnold announced that she would take a year-long break and miss the 2015/16 skeleton season due to burnout.
Yarnold has ranked on the since the 2010-2011 season.
2010-2011 35th
2011-2012 9th
2012-2013 6th
2013-2014 1st
2014-2015 1st.
Yarnold was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to skeleton racing.