Lizzy Yarnold has won Team GB's first gold of the Sochi Winter Olympics by claiming a convincing victory in the women's skeleton.
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The 25-year-old made a couple of mistakes on her final slide but was still fastest down the track on the fourth run of the competition as she clocked 58.09 seconds.
Yarnold won by an emphatic margin of 0.97 seconds from second-placed Noelle Pikus-Pace of America, while Russia's Elena Nikitina picked up a bronze medal on home soil. Pikus-Pace's US compatriot Katie Uhlaendar finished four hundredths of a second short of the podium places.
Her win makes Yarnold only Briton's 10th Winter Olympic champion and ensured that her country retained the women's skeleton title after Amy Williams triumphed in Vancouver 2010.
Yarnold's teammate Shelley Rudman finished 16th in what is likely to be her last Olympic appearance.
