Amy Williams wins skeleton gold medal at Winter Olympics 2010 in Vancouver
Last updated 2/21/2010 2:14:37 PM
Amy Williams wins skeleton gold at Winter Olympics 2010 in Vancouver
Great Britain won their hoped for Olympic Gold medal in the skeleton bobsleigh – but it was number two Amy Williams rather than the highly fancied Shelley Rudman.
Cambridge born and Bath based Williams led from start to finish over the entire four slides and overcame a spurious claim against her helmet by the disgruntled Americans, Germany, Canada and two unnamed teams.
They put in a protest after two rounds claiming Amy had added aero dynamics fitted to her helmet which had been passed and stickered FIBT confirming it was legal.
The complaint – the British girl was too fast for her rivals! And so she was, too quick, too smart and too good.
The victory meant that Slider Amy became Team GB’s first individual Olympic Winter Games gold medallist for a staggering 30 years years and the first woman individual gold medallist for 58 years.
The 27-year-old, based in Bath, won the women’s skeleton title by an emphatic 0.56 seconds.
Team-mate Shelley Rudman, favourite along with local girl world number one Mellisa Hollingsworth, Team GB’s Turin 2006 silver medallist, finished sixth.
Amy shattered the world record three times on the lightning fast Whistler track, which killed 21 year old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, to become the first Brit since Robin Cousins in 1980.
To put her triumph in perspective she is only the ninth gold medallist in the history of the Winter Olympics. It was also the first sliding gold since the legendary Tony Nash and Robin Dixon in 1964.
Williams said she was naturally delighted with her gold medal. "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,” she said. “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 went into the two final runs on Friday with a 0.30-second lead over Germany’s Kerstin Szymkowiak in second. She took a massive step closer to gold on the first run of the day with another stunning track record.
Her time of 53.68 took another 0.15 seconds off her own track record. Her rivals couldn’t match her pace and Williams went into the final run of four with a 0.52 second lead over Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth in second.
Williams kept her feet on the ground, saying: "I started afresh today and really enjoyed it. Corner 12 and 13 were a bit hairy, but it was a good run."
Rudman would have also challenged had she started better and her third run time of 53.95 was her fastest of the Games and reinforced her seventh place overall going into the final run. The Sheffield slider said: "I was getting a little bit better every time I went."
Rudman went on to produce the fastest final run – a time of 53.82 – to climb to sixth overall in 3:36.69.
But it was her team-mate Williams that took all the honours. She clocked 54.00 seconds on her final run to stretch her winning margin to 0.56 seconds from Szymkowiak, with another German, Anja Huber, taking bronze and the desperate Hollingsworth fourth.
The result means that 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 and Shelley Rudman took silver at Turin four years ago.
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.
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