American wins silver in skeleton with family's support

SOCHI, Russia – An Olympic medal had eluded Noelle Pikus-Pace in the cruelest of ways during her career.

In 2005, a runaway bobsled struck her on a Canadian track, shattering one of her legs and causing her to miss the 2006 Turin Games. She missed a medal by one-tenth of a second in the 2010 Vancouver Games.

So, her jubilation was understandable Friday after she finished second in the women's skeleton.

"This is better than gold for me," she said, through a mix of tears and laughter. "I'm trying to take it in and I just can't."

After finishing her last run, Pikus-Pace, of Orem, Utah, leapt into the stands to embrace her husband and two children.

"This is everything," said her husband, Janson Pace. "It's everything to us and we're ecstatic."

Lizzy Yarnold of Britain won the event, setting a track record and besting Pikus-Pace by nearly a second. Elena Nikitina of Russia took third.

"I put everything I had into it and my teammate is on the medal stand," Uhlaender said. "One out of two ain't bad. I worked really hard with a lot of people to get here and my heart is broken."

Pikus-Pace, 31, revealed after the race that she had suffered a concussion during an unofficial training run last week, forcing her to miss several days of practice. A U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Association spokeswoman previously had said she skipped the sessions to spend time with her family.

The injury, Pikus-Pace said, did not impact her performance: "I felt like I laid down my best runs and Lizzy just threw down."

Pikus-Pace initially retired from the sport after Vancouver, no longer content to spend months on the road without her family. Though she toyed with a comeback at various times, she didn't seriously pursue it until after a miscarriage with her third child at 18 weeks.

At her husband's urging, she returned to skeleton to find solace and the kind of empowerment that comes from flying face-first down an ice chute on a cookie sheet.

Few world-class athletes would consider such an unorthodox arrangement. But Pikus-Pace's family spent the past two years trekking across Europe and North America while she competed on the World Cup circuit.