POSTED: February 20th 2010
NewsUpdate
Skeleton heroine Williams slides to gold and British Olympic history
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
VANCOUVER/LONDON: Amy Williams skidded to Britain's first individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics for 30 years when she took gold in the skeleton. In winning, she also became Team GB's first woman individual winter Olympic champion for 58 years.
The 27-year-old from Bath won at the Whistler Sliding Centre by a decisive 0.56sec. Team-mate Shelley Rudman, a silver medallist in Turin four years ago and Britain's flag-bearer in the Opening Ceremony, came up sixth.
Williams said: "It's absolutely brilliant. It's out of this world. Never in a million years did I think I'd come here and win gold. I don't think it will sink in for weeks and weeks. It's amazing to do this for my country. I had nothing to lose here and I just went for it. I enjoyed every minute.
"I knew I had to just keep it together. I can't remember what I did on the last run, half of the track is just a blur. I've done everything I possibly could in the last four years to get here and to put in my best performance."
Williams led the field from her first run when she broke the track record . She took a 0.30-second lead over Germany’s Kerstin Szymkowiak into the final two runs then took a step closer to gold in the first with another track record of 53.68 which shaved 0.15 seconds off her own mark.
Winning margin
The final run saw Williams start with a 0.52sec lead over Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth in second. She then timed 54.00sec to stretch her winning margin to 0.56 seconds over Szymkowiak with another German, Anja Huber, taking bronze.
Great Britain have won medals in skeleton at the last three Olympic Winter Games, since the re-introduction of the sport to the Olympic programme. Alex Coomber won bronze at Salt Lake City in 2002 before Rudman's silver in Italy.
Britain has medalled at every Olympic Winter Games to feature skeleton, with David Carnegie, the 11th Earl of Northesk, winning bronze in 1928 and John Crammond also winning bronze in 1948.
Williams’ gold was Team GB’s ninth gold in Olympic Winter Games history. The last gold was won by the women’s curling team in Salt Lake City in 2002 and the last individual gold was won by figure skater Robin Cousins at Lake Placid in 1980. The last woman to win an individual gold was Jeannette Altwegg, who won figure skating gold in Oslo in 1952.
Keywords · Amy Williams · Winter Olympics · Vancouver · Rudman
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