 Poster: A snowHead
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I've not been watching this with all the skiing going on but the good news is
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Britain's Amy Williams set a new track record on her way to the halfway lead in the women's skeleton at Whistler.
The 27-year-old set a new best of 53.83 seconds on run one and her combined time of 1:47.96 after two runs gives her a substantial lead of 0.30 seconds.
Team-mate Shelley Rudman improved from 11th to joint seventh while British men Kristan Bromley and Adam Pengilly lie fifth and 20th respectively. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/skeleton/8520464.stm
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sat 20-02-10 8:58; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I watched the women's last night. Brilliant performance from Amy Williams, against the form book and the local favourite. Hopefully she can keep it all together in today's two runs and take a medal.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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She's also hot AND mad to boot, my favourite combination 
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I literally can't wait for this evening. The papers are mad for it as well, they're already writing like she's won it - I found a round up on a blog I wound up on off of Twitter.
http://www.winterolympics-focus.com/?p=100
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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This is quite frustrating! We're heading down to the city this weekend to watch some ice hockey (tonight), then stay with friends so we can get to the ski cross more easily on Sunday. So we'll be out of town when our best medal prospects have their final run, AND for the medal ceremony! Bollox!  My attempts to persuade Mrs G66 to ditch the visit to the friends in the city are coming to zero!
Looking forward to seeing how the British press handle it if we win medals on a track they've slated for the last week. Short-sighted tw@ts.
In unrelated news, we managed to find Tora Berger in the village last night, being interviewed. She let the kids hold her gold medal - the 100th medal won by Norway in the winter games. Pretty cool!
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greg66, Tora Berger sounds nice.
It will be amusing to watch the press forget what they have been saying. 
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YAY! Amy Williams wins... by miles!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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w00t! that was well and truly a convincing win.
142km/h on a "tea tray" - that's gotta be fun
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seriously frightening stuff that! But wow, that's an awesome result!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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That was so awesome 
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WHOOOO, GO AMY!! Gold!!
I see the other countries are throwing their toys out of the pram because a Brit came from nowhere to win 
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You know it makes sense.
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what a result - nice one team amy and team gb...fantastic effort
reminds me a bit of the cycling model - dedicated athletes, centralised training - good team ethos, good coaches and some great tech...
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| BOA NEWS ALERT wrote: |
Amy Williams Wins Stunning Skeleton Gold
Skeleton slider Amy Williams today (Friday) became Team GB’s first individual Olympic Winter Games gold medallist for 30 years and the first woman individual gold medallist for 58 years.
The 27-year-old from Bath won the women’s skeleton title at Vancouver 2010 Olympic by an emphatic 0.56 seconds.
Team-mate Shelley Rudman, Team GB’s Turin 2006 silver medallist, finished sixth.
Williams said she was 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 dominated the skeleton event in Vancouver from the start – leading from her very first run yesterday (Thursday), when she broke the track record at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
Williams went into today’s final two runs with a 0.30-second lead over Germany’s Kerstin Szymkowiak in second. And she took a 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 remained grounded saying: "I started afresh today and really enjoyed it. Corner 12 and 13 was a bit hairy, but it was a good run."
Rudman was also battling. Her third run time of 53.95 was her fastest of the Games to date and reinforced her seventh place overall going into the final run. The Sheffield slider said: "I'm starting to enjoy it now. I'm getting a little bit better every time I go."
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 the plaudits. 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.
Today’s result means 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. |
Nicely done
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Poster: A snowHead
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Well done Amy ...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Really excellent - shows that real talent can still win through.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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elgrego, nothing like Andy Murray, this is a thread about winners 
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Watched this live at stupid o'clock - what a superb result. Well done Amy. And perhaps a well done to Shelley also. 6th is still a creditable result.
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I was really pleased I stayed up to watch it, my first "live" British Winter Olympic Gold Medal... awesome stuff! 
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bertie bassett, And lots of money thrown at it too! Skeleton £2.1 M from Sport UK, Skiing only £372K. If you put enough money into a sport then you will get results. Cycling, Rowing, Swimming etc.
I'm not knocking Amy and what she achieved. Great result for her & Team GB, a fantastic achievement. But if the money was more evenly spread about our skiers, both Alpine & Cross Country etc might be doing better? It costs just as much if not more to run a world class Alpine ski team/programme as it does for the Skeleton. But I suppose this has been argued about before.
Anyhow - Go team GB. lets hope they can win some more medals. Curling or Bobsleigh perhaps?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Fantastic result! After teh hockey we broke out the 9 foot Union Jack and paraded it up a down Robson Street a couple of times. All very well received by the locals - the atmosphere is exceptionally good over here.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Superb result, and she seems to male a very good ambassador for the sport too.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Yellow Pyranha wrote: |
| And, just to add to this, why is it 'Team GB' and not 'Team UK' - where would a Northern Irish athlete go? |
I don't know, you need to take that up with the BOA
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The gold medal is the size of a dinner plate! A great result. Wonder how much larger the budget will be for Team Skeleton Bob now that Amy took gold?
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| Plugboy wrote: |
bertie bassett, And lots of money thrown at it too! Skeleton £2.1 M from Sport UK, Skiing only £372K. If you put enough money into a sport then you will get results. Cycling, Rowing, Swimming etc.
I'm not knocking Amy and what she achieved. Great result for her & Team GB, a fantastic achievement. But if the money was more evenly spread about our skiers, both Alpine & Cross Country etc might be doing better? It costs just as much if not more to run a world class Alpine ski team/programme as it does for the Skeleton. But I suppose this has been argued about before.
Anyhow - Go team GB. lets hope they can win some more medals. Curling or Bobsleigh perhaps? |
Ah but the money's been put into a sport where we have some record of winning medals - prior to Whistler, we'd medalled at consecutive winter Olympics and at recent world champs. Plus there was a tech angle and we've generally done better in recent events where we can throw tech at a problem (cycling, sailing etc) than we do in purer events. Jeez £2m a medal is quite low - look at the table from Beijing - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/7761495.stm where only boxing and cycling had a low per medal cost.
Do I agree that the funding for skiing in absolute terms is too low - yes of course I do, synchro swimming for gawds sake has a budget of over c. 3.5M for the London Games.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| The gold medal is the size of a dinner plate! |
I thought that but at least they are better than the ones that looks like a spray painted DVD. Even the ribbon ran through the hole.
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| Plugboy wrote: |
| bertie bassett, And lots of money thrown at it too! Skeleton £2.1 M from Sport UK, Skiing only £372K. ... |
I take it that that support followed medal winning at the previous Winter Olympics?
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| achilles wrote: |
| Plugboy wrote: |
| bertie bassett, And lots of money thrown at it too! Skeleton £2.1 M from Sport UK, Skiing only £372K. ... |
I take it that that support followed medal winning at the previous Winter Olympics? |
Yes, I think so. The budget for Alpine skiing seems to have been shrinking since at least the Turin Games. The budget for skeleton increased because of Shelly Rudman's silver AIUI.
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