Janine Flock slides into history to write unlikely Winter Olympics redemption tale

As she lifted her sled onto the track and planted her feet in the blocks, Janine Flock could be forgiven for feeling nervous.

The skeleton great had been here before, about to start the last run of the Olympic final with a gold medal in sight, and it certainly not gone to plan.

Flock once said her collapse in PyeongChang eight years ago will forever define her career. At the freezing cold Cortina Sliding Centre, she was proven wrong.

The Austrian, 36 and at her fourth Olympics, delivered one of the more popular golds at these Games with a scintillating run to fend off two world champions and a trio of Brits.

When she crossed the line, she collapsed to the ice, scarcely believing what she had done and burst into tears. Redemption was sweet.

Flock held the lead in 2018 but under immense pressure from Great Britain’s Lizzy Yarnold, flunked the last run.

She bounced off the sides like a toddler at the bowling alley and dropped to fourth, 0.02s away from a medal.

Flock had all but given up on the Olympics. She finished ninth and 10th in her other appearances and with four European golds, three World Championship medals and enough World Cup trophies to fill a trophy cabinet that presumably needed planning permission before being built, she had a fine career nonetheless.

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After building a steady lead, she started the final run 0.21s ahead of Susanne Kreher but a poor start immediately put her behind.

However, the Cortina track is a flowing, technical challenge, and for an athlete who grew up on Innsbruck’s sweeping track, this was right up her street.

She steadily regained the lead and crossed the line with a 0.30s advantage.

“I’m totally emotional, I still can’t believe it. I’m very proud, I’m very happy and very thankful that we achieved that,” she said after becoming the oldest women’s skeleton Olympic medallist.

“My emotions are mixed. There was no time to calm down and to feel it, to catch everything. It’s like a big mountain of emotions.”

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Watching from above, Great Britain’s Freya Tarbit and Amelia Coltman celebrated as hard as they did when Matt Weston won the men’s 24 hours before.

“She's our idol, she's amazing. We're so happy for her,” Tarbit said.

“She's like our fourth team member. She's such a great person and she deserves this so much.”

Tarbit finished seventh and Coltman ninth after a pair of strong performances, while Tabby Stoecker – Britain’s best medal hope – finished fifth.

Stoecker had been flying around this track in training but struggled in the first few turns in competition runs.

She started the day just over half a second off Flock but that grew to more than a second after a disappointing third run. She ended up more than a second off a medal.

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Stoecker, 25, will be back on Sunday in the mixed doubles and perhaps with Olympic men’s champion Weston.

That will be finalised in the morning, with Team GB entering two squads, but after winning two of the four mixed team World Cup events with Marcus Wyatt, Team GB have a strong chance.

“To be up there, coming fifth, mixing it with women who won the World Championships, won the Olympics. I'm pretty proud,” she said.

“To be mixing it with them and their level of consistency was just better than mine this game.”

Stoecker, third on the World Cup circuit, will hope her day will come. Flock had to wait eight years but it was worth it.

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