A winter sports star from Kent is a junior world champion after sliding her way to a gold medal.

West Kingsdown athlete Lizzy Yarnold, who competes in bob skeleton, clinched the junior title with a strong performance at the challenging Igls track in Austria.

Her victory comes just a week after she won gold at the World Cup in St Moritz, Switzerland.

Speaking from a training camp in the Canadian resort of Whistler, 23-year-old Lizzy said: "It's been a fantastic few weeks.

"The world juniors were always my focus for this season as I got the silver medal last year by a hundredth of a second.

"It went to a Canadian athlete who was a really great athlete who'd had a lot of practice at the track and I'd only had about eight runs there so I was really eager to do my best and win this year."

Bob skeleton is one of the most dangerous winter sports.

Competitors descend down icy courses on tiny sleds with no brakes, reacing speeds of more than 80mph.

Some skeleton tracks have bends which loop through a full 360 degrees, where athletes negotiate the equivalent of a two storey high wall while battling intense G forces.

Lizzy, who is based at the University of Bath, said: "You accept that you're going to be travelling quite fast. At the beginning of the season, it's quite difficult to get your brain to work quickly enough but the speed is not that bad.

"I had those sort of mad attributes when I was younger. I used to go on all the scary rides at theme parks so my parents always knew!"

Nigel Laughton, performance director at British Skeleton, added: "It's been a great few weeks for us and I'm very proud of the success we've had, especially Lizzy's.

"She was second last year and this result shows good progression."