OLYMPIC bronze medalist Laura Deas admits fear of the competition catching up means there is no danger of her basking in the glow of her achievement for too long.

Melksham-based Deas clinched a podium place in the women's skeleton competition at the PyeongChang Winter Games earlier this year, as teammate Lizzy Yarnold retained her Olympic crown

Since her success, the 29 year old has also got married, but with the British Skeleton system continuing to develop promising young sliders Deas is in no mood to rest on her laurels, returning to training in the gym and on the push track ahead of the next campaign.

“I’ve had a decent break but I pretty quickly got to the point where I felt that, if I didn’t get back in the gym, the younger ones were going to be nipping at my heels and overtaking me,” she told thebbsa.co.uk.

“Lizzy’s always given me the advice that it’s important to have a break and I did take that on board, but we’ve got so much strength in depth that I couldn’t sit back and think ‘I don’t need to train’ - and I wouldn’t want to do that anyway.

"While I didn’t want to get back to training too soon and then feel stale, or get halfway through the summer and feel that I should have more of a break, I also think I’m a classic athlete in the sense in that I do better when I’ve got a timetable and a structure.

“We’ve got so many strong athletes coming through the programme now. We’ve got two female athletes who competed on the World Cup with me and Lizzy last season (Ashleigh Pittaway and Maddy Smith); we’ve got the overall Europa Cup champion (Brogan Crowley); and we had a podium sweep for the first time in seven years on the Europa Cup in November.

“I know what it’s like to be in the position those athletes are in now: four years ago I had missed out on going to the Olympics and I had that real fire in my belly.

"I wanted to prove to everyone that I could make a mark for myself on the World Cup circuit so I know exactly how those guys are feeling right now.

“That’s obviously giving me even more motivation but I’m also looking forward to playing my part in bringing the next generation through as well. That’s a privileged position to be in.”