A year to the day after winning gold in the women's skeleton at the Winter Olympics, former University of Gloucestershire pupil Lizzy Yarnold once again shone on the same Sochi track to win the final World Cup event of the season.
The 26-year-old slider, who was Britain's only gold medallist at the Games in Russia 12 months ago, edged out home hope Maria Orlova by 0.04 seconds on Saturday with Germany's Anja Huber Selbach finishing third.
Despite winning her fifth World Cup gold medal this season, it was not enough for Yarnold to retain her overall title, with that honour going to Austria's Janine Flock, who finished fourth at the Sanki Sliding Center.
Yarnold came into the event trailing Flock by 53 points but gave herself every chance of ousting her rival by laying down a marker with a time of 57.94 secs to move to the top of the leaderboard after her first run. Flock, by contrast, was 10th fastest.
The European champion held on to first place with an overall time of one minute 56.57 secs, but Flock was able to post a better second run and moved up to fourth, taking her to 1,531 points overall - 20 ahead of Yarnold.
The Briton, who missed the second race of the season in Calgary after experiencing dizzy spells, will now turn her focus to the World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, which get under way later this month.
