WILTSHIRE skeleton slider Laura Deas is hoping to reach February’s World Championships fit and healthy as she looks to ignite her road to the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Deas, who hails from Wales but lives in Chippenham, won a bronze medal at the PyeongChang Games back in 2018 and has already stated her aim to be back on the Olympic startline in China in little over two years’ time.

The 31-year-old is two events into her 2019-20 schedule after the opening pair of World Cup events of the season, finishing 10th in the series opener at Lake Placid in New York State at the start of the month.

The eight-event World Cup series resumes with round three at Winterberg, Germany, on January 5 but the main target for the season is the World Championships in the last week of February.

Having had to skip last season’s World Championships owing to injury, Deas hopes to make up for that with a strong performance in Altenberg, Germany, in two months’ time at a track at which she won World Cup gold in the 2015-16 season.

Deas says her primary ambition is to keep building towards the Beijing 2022 Olympics, but global success along the way would be more than welcome.

“Beijing is on the horizon and everyone knows it is coming,” said Deas.

“In the shorter term, the World Championships are at the end of this season and hopefully I will get there strong and healthy and be able to put in a good performance.

“I will be looking to try to win a medal there. It is going to be difficult as we will be on a German track where they have very strong athletes and will have home advantage.

“It is going to be a tough ask but it is a track I have performed well on in the past.

“I have won a World Cup medal there before, so I will take some confidence in there knowing what I have done in the past and will just give it my all, hoping I click with the track when it counts.”

Deas admits missing the 2019 World Championships in Canada because of whiplash was frustrating end to the previous campaign.

However, there were still plenty of positives to take in the first year back on the Olympic cycle post her PyeongChang medal-winning heroics.

“It was a really tough end to last season not being able to compete at the World Championships,” said Deas.

“Luckily, the week before I’d had a really good final World Cup result with a medal in Calgary, so I was able to take some positivity from that.

“Hopefully that is behind me and I can carry on and compete and it won’t rear its head again.”