LAURA Deas has no doubt that she has what it takes to slide to more Wiltshire success on the global skeleton stage at this weekend’s World Championships.

Deas, who lives in Melksham, will be looking to follow in the footsteps of Pewsey’s Shelley Rudman, who was crowned world champion in 2013, seven years after winning Olympic silver.

That is not the only pedigree that the 28-year-old has to work with as the British Skeleton programme on which Deas is based has also delivered gold medals at the last two Olympics through Amy Williams and Lizzy Yarnold, with the latter also winning the world title two years ago.

Although the championships, which take place today and tomorrow, are being held on a less than favourable track for Deas at Konigssee in Germany, the Welsh woman is sure she can upset the form book.

“I think it’s fair to say that I am not one of the favourites because I have never had a brilliant result on that track but I like the fact that I am going there without a massive amount of pressure,” said Deas, who finished 11th at the worlds a year ago, as well as seventh in 2015.

“I think it’s partly to do with the fact I have probably not had as much time there as I have at other places. When your runs are more limited, it’s harder to learn everything there is to know about the track.

“Having been there for the World Cup a few weeks ago, we learned quite a lot that we can take forward and improve on.

“There is no reason to be anything other than confident because we have got a great set-up, great equipment, and my push will be a big strength on a short track.

“Every race I go into now, I want to win a medal. And I know I can win a medal on my day.

“That will be what I take going into the championships.”

Deas first took up skeleton in 2008 after being spotted as part of UK Sport’s ‘Girls for Golds’ talent identification scheme and has since gone on to win four World Cup medals, including a gold at Altenberg in the 2015-16 campaign.

Although he had no knowledge of the sport prior to joining the programme, Deas took the leap from her first passion of eventing without any trepidation.

“My brother heard about the UK Sport talent search on the radio, so I went down to one of the events in Manchester and did all the tests, and a couple of weeks later, I got a letter saying come to Bath to try skeleton,” said Deas.

“At that point, I didn’t actually know what skeleton was but they handily put a DVD in the envelope, which showed footage of Shelley at the Olympics in Turin (in 2006).

“I thought it looked interesting and I have always been into adrenaline sports, so I came to Bath and it went from there.

“Obviously there was a moment of: ‘she is going head first at 80mph down a sheet of ice – is this sensible?’, but I was more intrigued and thought: ‘how is that working? How is that person steering that sled?’.

“The first year was just getting used to being in that environment, learning about the sled and the track and just hanging on for dear life. Every year, you build onto that and competition gets added as well.

“It’s not immediately obvious but I think there are lots of things that were transferable from evening, such as balance, co-ordination, having a good feel for something underneath you, being able to think quickly and make snap decisions in the moment.

“All of those things I already did when I was riding, so it was real help when I transferred to skeleton.”