• Winter Olympics - Day Eight

Williams grabs British gold at last

ESPN staff
February 19, 2010
Gold medalist Amy Williams is lifted by her German runners up © Getty Images
Enlarge

Day eight gallery

Amy Williams is the new darling of British sport after winning gold with a simply dominating performance at the women's skeleton on Friday. It is Great Britain's ninth ever Winter Olympic gold, the first for an individual woman in 58 years, and the first ever individual gold away from the figure skating rink.

It is also Britain's first medal of the Vancouver Games, and it was secured in the most emphatic of fashions as Williams blew away all comers to amass an aggregate lead of 0.56 of a second over her four runs at Whistler Sliding Centre. In a sport defined by hundredths of seconds, Williams put daylight between herself and the field to win her first major event.

Germany took silver and bronze in the event through Kerstin Szymkowiak and Anja Huber, who both jumped up places with stellar final runs.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Williams scorched down the ice to set a new track record for the second time in two days in her first run on Friday, building on her first day lead in the process. Mistakes by second-placed Canadian Mellisa Hollingsworth in the final run sent her tumbling down to fifth overall and left Williams to just put in a mistake-free run to claim gold.

Fellow Brit Shelley Rudman put in the fastest time of the final heat to jump up one place to sixth overall. Rudman had claimed Britain's only skeleton berth at the 2006 Games ahead of Williams, but the 27-year-old from Bath was not to denied this time, bettering her silver medal at the World Championships last year.

Meanwhile, Britain's women curlers continued their solid start with a 7-4 win over Germany. It was an important victory in the context of the race for an all-important top-four round robin table position, given the Germans are one of Team GB's main rivals for a semi-final berth.

It was a low-scoring, tense match until the ninth end when the Brits broke open the 4-4 deadlock with a three-score thanks to 19-year-old skip Eve Muirhead. Germany conceded the match midway through the final end.

Elsewhere, gold continued to flow for Norway as Marit Bjoergen lived up to expectations on the cross country course and Aksel Lund Svindal powered home in the men's Super G.

Bjoergen justified her favouritism in the women's 15km Pursuit (7.5 Classic+7.5 Free) event by leading at the interval and bringing it home in 39:58.1. She was the only woman to break the 40-minute mark, with Sweden's Anna Haag snaring silver nine seconds back. Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland beat Kristin Stoermer Steira with a desperate lunge on the line to deny Norway another medal.

Svindal was another competitor to put daylight in the silver medal position, with his 1:30.34 run in the thrilling downhill event beating the nearest competitor by 0.28 of a second. That may not seem like much, but the same margin separated silver medalist Bode Miller and ninth place. Andrew Weibrecht made it two Americans on the podium by netting himself a bronze.

The men's skeleton was also decided late on Friday, with Canada's Jon Montgomery bringing more joy to the host nation by pipping Latvian Martins Dukurs in an incredible two-way duel for gold. Montgomery was trailing Dukurs after three heats, but sent himself headlong down the track with the weight of a nation pushing him all the way to register a time of 52.36 - nearly matching his own track record of 52.20, which he set earlier in the day in narrowing Dukurs' lead.

Dukurs then had the last run of the competition but failed to maintain his lead, losing out by seven hundredths of a second. Alexander Tretyakov of Russia was a full second off Montgomery's aggregate time in the bronze medal position. British slider Kristan Bromley came in a credible seventh, with his fastest time of 52.70 also coming in the lightning conditions of the early session on Friday.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Close

ABOUT COOKIES

To help make this website better, to improve and personalize your experience and for advertising purposes, are you happy to accept cookies and other technologies.

More Info Here Cookie Choices