Amy Williams slides into Olympic history

Published on Saturday 20 February 2010 10:03

IT TOOK 54 seconds for Amy Williams to end a wait that has lasted 58 long years.

• Williams celebrates after winning the gold medal

The first British woman since figure skater Jeannette Altwegg in 1952 to win individual gold at the Winter Olympic Games, Williams catapulted herself into sporting stardom with a 90mph slide to victory in the skeleton bob event in Whistler and will be soon be learning just as quickly that life will never be the same again.

Gold medals for Great Britain in the Winter Olympics don't come along too often, so the 27-year-old from Bath certainly made a name for herself by pulling off such an spectacular result at the Whistler Sliding Centre north of Vancouver. Ranked fifth in the world going into these Games and without a victory on the sport's World Cup circuit to her name, Williams obliterated her rivals on the world's fastest track to win only the ninth gold medal for Great Britain in Winter Olympic history and set a number of other records straight.

She is Britain's first individual gold medallist since Robin Cousins won the men's figure skating 30 years ago at the 1980 Lake Placid Games; she is the first individual to win Winter Olympic gold for Britain in any sport other than figure skating; she is Britain's first Winter Olympic champion since Rhona Martin's curling team in Salt Lake City eight years ago.

"I'm not very good at statistics so I didn't realise I'm the first gold medallist for a long time," said Williams, who was a 400m and 200m runner until she switched sports in 2002. "But I think it shows that if you have the determination any country can be good at any sport and you just have to concentrate and do your best."

If the weight of history was on her shoulders, Williams showed no sign of wilting under the pressure in her fourth and final run on Friday night. The key to her success at the Games has been her explosive start and the dozen big strides she needed to jet-propel herself head first down track like a human cannonball on the sled she calls Arthur gave her the speed she needed to finish on top of the podium.

Williams was second in the 2009 World Championships, but insists she did not expect to contend for the biggest prize at the Olympics. "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've done everything I possibly could in the last four years to get here and to put in my best performance.

"I surprised myself because I wasn't really nervous. I slept absolutely perfectly and I was quite excited. It doesn't feel like an Olympic Games – it just feels like a normal World Cup race except with more people shouting for me."

The margin of her victory was so impressive that the Canadian team immediatley lodged a protest about the legality of her helmet, but the complaint was dismissed just as quickly by officials. It followed a similar appeal on Thursday night from the Americans, supported by five other teams but also rejected, after Williams broke the track record to lead at the halfway stage after two runs.

The British slider's helmet has a ridge known as a spoiler on the back which, the protesting teams claimed, breached an article of the rule-book which deems that it must not have any additionally attached aerodynamic elements. The International Bobsleigh and Tobogganing Federation said the manufacturer had confirmed that the spoilers were "an integral part of the helmet" and that it conformed to the sport's regulations.

Williams was not about to let it spoil her golden moment. "It doesn't surprise me," she said, hinting at gamesmanship from her opponents. "If someone's quick people want to bring them down. I wasn't worried about because everything I have had been checked by the jury. Everyone likes to play head-games."

British athletes know how to keep a cool head when it comes to skeleton racing. Each time the discipline has featured at the Games, Britain have collected medal, with David Carnegie, the 11th Earl of Northesk, winning bronze in 1928 and John Crammondpicking up bronze in 1948.

The women's version first featured in the Olympics in 2002, when Alex Coomber ignored a broken wrist to win bronze for Britain. When Shelly Rudman took silver at the 2006 Turin Games, Williams was a reserve and commentated for BBC radio. This time, cheered on by a boisterous British contingent of fans that included Sir Richard Branston and her parents, Ian and Jan, the Bath Bullet did more than enough to go one better.

Her cumulative time over four runs was a massive half a second faster than her nearest challenger, a huge margin in skeleton bob racing and the equivalent of 15m in distance. Last to go, Williams watched as German rivals Kerstin Szymkowiak and Anja Huber moved into medal contention without threatening her own lead. World No 1 and home favourite Mellisa Hollingsworth then fell away in a desperate bid to eat into Williams' huge advantage.

On a course blighted by last week's death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and scattered with crashes from bobsleigh training, Williams steered down the 1,450 metres descent in her final run without a mistake in 54 seconds flat, easily enough to extend her winning margin to 0.56 seconds in a cumulative total of 3min 55.64sec. Szymkowiak and Hube took silver and bronze, with Rudman finishing in sixth place.

Williams was whizzed off to begin a gruelling series of media interviews. She was due to receive her gold medal at a ceremony at the Whistler Medals Plaza late last night.

"I can't believe it's happening. I feel like I'm in a bit of a bubble and it doesn't seem quite real," she said. "It was my goal just to be at the Olympics so I just went for it. It all came together on the right day in the right race."