EJF

 Hello, I am Eleanor Furneaux. I am a Great Britain Skeleton athlete. Welcome to my website!! On here you will find regular blog updates, videos and photos from competitions and training on and off the ice. You will be able to follow me on my journey to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

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For a country without an ice track of its own, British Skeleton have won a medal in every winter olympics since it was reintroduced in 2002, so there is a lot to live up to! We have our own push track in Bath which is where we spend many months of the year training on to get our pushes up there with the worlds best.

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I started Skeleton back in 2014 and was selected through the Talent Identification Programme. We are based in Bath full time during the summer months, from May through to September, and then from October to March we are travelling, competing and training on ice tracks around the world.

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Skeleton is a sport where bumps and bruises are a expected. The first couple of years in this sport are the most painful. Hitting concrete walls covered in ice, as you can imagine, hurts. But once you learn how to control the sled the hits get less painful. I'm not going to pretend that you stop hitting walls completely, because you don't. Even the top athletes in this sport do, sometimes it is the fastest line! 

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I have not had the easiest journey so far, but I never expected I would. I have had my fair share of crashes and injuries. Unfortunately, I was unable to slide most of the 2015/16 season due to a severe nerve injury in my leg. However, there was not one moment in the lowest of times during my rehab that I had any doubts that I would make it back. It only made me more determined to come back stronger and quicker. After six months of intensive rehab and recovery, I made it back out to ice.

 

I had the pleasure of fore-running for the North America's Cup race in Lake Placid, my first real experience of competition. Even though I was not competing in the race, just being in that competitive environment and back on my sled excited me for the coming season of racing. This season (2016/17) I have been competing on the Europa Cup circuit, sliding tracks such as Konigssee Germany, and St. Moritz Switzerland. After competing in five out of the eight races this season, I finished 31st overall. My best finish being 13th in St. Moritz in January 2017. Personally, I wanted more, but this makes me happy because I know that I am not going to stop until I reach my full potential and win medals!! I have a long way to go, but I know I can do it.

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We start summer training in May after a much needed month of light training and a couple of weeks off completely. Summer training is tough. We train two to three times a day, in the gym ,on the push track, on the sprint track and on the watt bikes. This is all in preparation for the season ahead of us so we are in the best possible condition physically and mentally to hit the ground running come October! 

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I have only been home a week and am already excited about what the 2017/18 season has to offer. 

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I hope you have a little bit more of an insight into me and my journey to the Beijing 2022 Games. I will be blogging about my training and all things skeleton every two weeks so make sure you have a read! 

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