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Monday February 22, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The weekend started with celebrations as Great Britain won its first individual gold medal at a Winter Olympics for 30 years.  Amy Williams's success in the skeleton led news bulletins and put a massive smile of the faces of Team GB out in Vancouver.

It was quite a performance as we reported here.

Sadly though Chemmy Alcott did not fare as well and came 20^th in the women's super-G, a disappointing result for her.

It was though quite a race with the Austrian Andrea Fischbacher taking gold, Slovenia's Tina Maze coming second and relegating the US ski superstar, Lyndsey Vonn, into bronze. 

Ed Drake came a respectable 32nd in the Super G and then got a top 30 position in the Super Combined.

He was 33rd after the downhill and finshed 29th with an impressive run on a demanding slalom course.

"I can't complain about that, it's by best finish of the Games,” he said after his slalom. “I would have settled for a top-30 before. I would have liked to get into the top-30 on the speed run, but I missed that by twelve hundredths of a second.

“I didn't expect too much from the slalom. It was my first competitive slalom of the season and I'm not a slalom skier, but I put in a half decent performance,” he said.

Top 30

Team GB's Sarah Ainsworth finished 22^nd in the freestyle skiing women's aerials competition at Cypress mountain while the men's 2 man bobsleigh team crashed.

The pair of driver John Jackson and Dan Money walked away from their bobsleigh with cuts and bruises but said they will be back in action in the four-man.

Driver Jackson said: "It's disappointing because we've had some fairly decent times in the two-man.

"The track is in an amazing condition and it's beautiful to drive. I just made a mistake."

Brakeman Money said: "his can happen - it's bobsleigh, it's not ballet dancing. We'll just have to come back for the four-man."

The pair will join forces with Allyn Condon and Henry Nwume in the four-man bobsleigh, which takes place next Friday and Saturday.

Talking of dacing the Team GB ice dancers John and Sinead Kerr produced a typically exuberant performance in the original dance on Sunday. They scored 56.76 to give them a total score of 93.78 and 8th place overall.

Teammates Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland scored 46.33, giving them 20th place with a total score so far of 72.01.

The dancers delight

So, what about the curlers?

Well the men and the women are hard at it in the round robin stages of the tournaments and we are hard pressed to keep up with it all let alone understand the rules.

Great Britain men, who are tipped for success, now sit equal third in the standings and face Germany in their penultimate round-robin game later.

While the women now lie sixth in the standings with three wins and four losses.

Can Amy inspire others?

So the main story of the weekend is the celebrations for the first British gold for 3 decades that may inspire others in Team GB wh are competing at the Whistler Sliding centre.

Here's their reation:

Nicola Minichiello, women's bobsleigh: 

"Amy's win was absolutely amazing. We had to watch it on TV because we were practising late last night but it was brilliant. It gives us huge confidence that the British team have got things right."

Gillian Cooke, women's bobsleigh: "Amy's win was absolutely fantastic. For us it is a real inspiration that someone from our country has gone out there and done it and it just spurs us all on to go out and emulate her success."

John Kerr, figure skating:

 "It's fantastic for Team GB, we're not really a big winter sports nation so a medal of any colour for us is a great achievement."

Sinead Kerr, figure skating:

 "We actually watched it just before we came out to skate our compulsory dance,  so it was great to get a chance to see her and to give us motivation to go forwards as well."

Adam Pengilly, skeleton:

"When someone does that well we all feel a buzz off it. All the coaches were just so over the moon, I was really pleased for Amy and the support staff, engineers, physios, everyone's had their small part to play."

Paula Walker, women's bobsleigh:

"Seeing Amy getting gold was a bit surreal. I had a tear in my eye. There's definitely something working well in Team GB towards the sliding centre so hopefully we can follow suit and get results."

See our special Olympic Section on PlanetSKI; as well as the latest news it is has some in-depth features and a few stories that you wont see elsewhere.

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