Coltman ‘at peace’ with 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.

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Coltman was the first Briton to win the Europa Cup title in skeleton [Getty Images]

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.”

Coltman’s next chapter is already mapped out: she begins a PGCE at Loughborough University in September with the aim of becoming a secondary PE teacher.

School visits and work with the Youth Sport Trust during her career convinced her inspiring the next generation is where she wants to put her energy.

“I quite like to use my journey as an example of not being afraid to try different things,” she said. “If I said no to skeleton in the first place, I would not have had this insane journey.”

The recent Olympics triggered a surge in interest in skeleton. Talent identification applications soared to around 6,000 against an initial target of 500.

And Coltman is now happy to step back and watch the next wave emerge.

“It will be such a full-circle moment when those people compete in the World Cup in five years’ time. We as a team have played a part in getting their journey started.

“The future of GB skeleton is hopefully going to be bright.”