‘My life is sports but the cold ou the slopes’
OLYMPIC MEDALLIST AMY WILL BRRRR
WINTER Olympics gold medal winner Amy Williams has made a shock confession – she hates the cold.
She became the first Brit individual winner in the snow and ice for 30 years when she claimed the skeleton bobsled title in 2010.
Now retired from the sport, she is heading out to South Korea to join the BBC commentary team for PyeongChang 2018.
But being out on the icy slopes is torture for her.
She said: “You get so beyond cold at the side of the track – and I hate the cold!
“The temperatures in Korea will be minus five to minus 20, so absolutely crazy cold.
“I’m going to get clothing with electric heat panels, thermals, heat warmers, everything.”
Amy began her career on the track in Bath as a 400m runner.
A chance conversation at her gym led her to take a trial on the skeleton – often likened to a tea tray – at the city’s university.
Amy said: “A lot of us are from athletic, sprinting backgrounds, because when you first push the sled it’s sprinting for 20-30 metres where the power, speed and explosiveness off the blocks is really important, and it’s only then you learn to slide.”
On the Bath “start” track, Amy learned the biomechanics of sprinting and getting to grips with being face down on the sled.
She said: “I just took myself one day and had a go and I was intrigued.
“People presume I have spent my life skiing, but no. I went on my first ski trip just before Christmas – my family had no money for anything like that.”
At the 2010 Vancouver Games, Amy broke the track record twice and won by more than half a second.
It made her our first female winter gold winner since 1952.
But injuries forced her retirement in 2012.
She will be lending her expertise when she joins Clare Balding’s commentary team for the games, which begin on February 9.
She said: “The first few days I’ll be on the sofa with Clare, then I’ll be flying out to Korea for just over a week, mostly covering the skeleton events.
“I’m also one of the Team GB ambassadors so I’ll also have my other hat on supporting the athletes.
“The cold doesn’t always mean it’s great news for snow. They’ll have warehouses full of snow that they’ve stocked up on, and snow machines, ready to pump it out on the slopes.”
After the Russian doping scandal rocked the Sochi Games in 2014, Team GB is hoping to be able to compete without any trouble this year.
She said: “The GB bobsleigh team is still waiting to hear if they got bronze four years ago because of the Russian doping scandal. This year, their athletes can prove they are clean and still compete individually under a neutral flag, but it’s still a big thing looming over the Olympics.”
Despite that, telly viewers can’t get enough of the Winter Games. Almost three million tuned in for the peak of the 2014 event.
Amy thinks the unpredictably of the Winter Games is what makes it such a crowd pleaser.
She said: “Everyone loves it – the excitement, the thrill, not knowing what’s going to happen, the unpredictability, the weather, too much snow, not enough snow. It’s crazy.”
For more information visit AmyWilliams.com.
You can also follow Amy on Twitter using @AmyWilliamsMBE. into early