Top Gear Live show

The week after selection races I went home for a few days, these were quickly filled up with packing/unpacking but also I was involved in the Top Gear live shows in Birmingham. What great fun, as always, I was in part of the show where a race track had been made up for all different makes and model of cars, old and new. I was the star in the reasonable priced car, and with a live leader board, raced my way around to try and beat who ever else was on their. I got a few practice laps with The Stig, but then the race was on, a bit like my skeleton races, not quite enough time to perfect every corner! Maybe The Stig can come and walk down the skeleton track with me one day and see what he thinks would be the fast line!!

WINTERBERG SELECTION RACE 1

This year the British selection races are both in Germany, on two different tracks, Winterberg and Altenberg. We will all race and our results will be given points, added up and then the teams selected for the season, deciding who will be on the World cup, Intercontinental and Europa cup teams.
Yesterday was the first runs down the Winterberg track, we have three days of official training with two runs a day, then race on the 1st Nov 9am.
So far its going well, I will test out a few different pairs of runners today, so see how they work on the ice conditions here, and then make a decision as to which ones to races on. I will keep you posted as to how the next’s few days go.

Start of the winter season 2011-12!

I am writing this blog to you from a little log cabin in Lillehammer, Norway, it sounds rather romantic, I am sure your all thinking along the lines of big sofas, log fires, hot chocolate and being all snuggled up warm… but disappointingly it is far from that! For starters I can hardly see the keyboard as the lights are so dim, and there is no light outside even though its only 10am! No fire exists or sofas, but some hard backed chairs instead! So why am I in this log cabin? No, its not any crazy challenge that I maybe on, but it is the start of the skeleton season. That time of year has come around again so soon. Last week the whole of the British Skeleton Team had a pre season review camp in Bath, going through the season ahead, setting goals for the team and each individual athlete, arranging travel and hotels, the list is endless in what we covered! So I found myself a few days ago packing up my bags, sorting out all my kit and equipment, buying up my favourite food goodies, such as tea bags, marmite, honey, yes honey a big necessity for me, I love the stuff! My comfort food!
All our kit went onto the vans that were getting driven out by support team, so luckily we didn’t have to transport it all up to London for our flights a few days later. Love travelling with just hand luggage, what bliss!
It will be my first full competition circuit since the Olympic year in 2009/10, so I am interested to see how I feel when I am back on ice and sliding again in competitions. To start with the whole British team are here in Lillehammer, we have our first day of sliding today, after having two days sorting out our sleds and getting them ready to be fit to slide! I am on the same sled, Arthur, that I was on at the Olympics, although like you would MOT a car, a lot has changed in him! Hope he behaves himself for me!
We have our first selection race on the 1st November in Winterberg a track in Germany, then a second race in Altenberg another German track on the 6th Nov. I will let you know how they go.

BT Olympic Ball

I attend the BT BOA Olympic ball that took place this year at Kensington Olympia on the 7th October in London, it was the biggest event so far with over 2500 attending. The month before I had been part of a photo shoot to promote the ball up in the BT tower in London, what great views we all had from up there! Great photo guys…
The ball is a great event with the aim to raise money for the British Olympic Association who organise everything that the athletes need to go and compete at an Olympics, from hotels to kit to travel, the list goes on. The ball this year raised over £700,000 an amazing amount. Thank you to everyone that donated, or bought the auction items on the night to help raise this huge amount. I need to find out now who won the bid to have me teach them on the skeleton track in Austria this year!
I would like to say a thank you to Watling Goldsmiths who lent me some jewellery for the night, I was able to go into their shop in Lacock which is just outside Bath, and chose anything that I wanted to wear with my dress. I felt amazing wearing their beautiful hand crafted pieces, so thank you Jane.

Olympic Day Run Race

On the 24th June I helped out at Bath University with the Olympic day run.
The University of Bath hosted a sporting celebration on behalf of the British Olympic Foundation to celebrate International Olympic Day.
Building on the International Olympic Committee’s three pillars of Move, Learn and Discover, the day consisted of different secondary school students taking part in the run and a sports festival to discover new skills, a junior academy for students to learn and debate Olympic themes and an art display. More than 400 young people attended the event at the Sports Training Village. I started off the race with a few words to encourage and inspire the young athletes.

Top Gear

Are you a fan of Top Gear? (I am!) If you haven’t already seen it, you need to get onto i-player and see the first of the new series that started last week (26th June), in which I was featured. I went out to Lillehammer to race the new Mini rally car down the track on my sled. James May was in the rally car and I was on the skeleton track, it was great fun although hard work as we filmed for two nights solid 6pm -7am! I was shattered by the end! I was in the studio last week for the last bit of filming and for a little chat with Jeremy Clarkson! Well I didn’t get to say too much in the end, but great great fun, thanks guys! http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/06/27/behind-the-scenes-james-and-amy-williams/

Wimbledon 2011

I was lucky to be invited to Wimbledon on the middle Sports Saturday, I received an invitation last year and so was thrilled when I received another this year. It really is a grand day out, an early start to get dressed up (making sure my dress covered my dodgy knee!) and ready with my good friend Vicky, who had stayed over in Bath to join me for the occasion. We got to Wimbledon in good time and were met at the gates by lots of sports fans wanting autographs; they would have got a good number, as I was joining many sporting greats, such as Jonathon Edwards, Mark Foster, Sir Steve Redgrave and Martina Navratilova. It’s always lovely to be standing next to fellow athletes whom you admire so much.
Also invited to the Royal Box were many service men and women from the Armed Forces and it was particularly memorable how they received a long ovation from the crowd in honour of them all. The tennis was superb: I was lucky to have Roger Federer and Djokovic to watch - a first for me - and now today Djokovic has gone on to win Wimbledon 2011. Well done to him!
I did start thinking, throughout the matches that day, how tennis players move to that next level of competition. As an athlete who has now reached the highest level of my sport, I know the dedication and hard work that goes into reaching that level. One of which is through technology, research and development. I admit I know nothing about tennis as a sport, apart from simply the scoring! But my brain was whirring with how they must improve to the next step. When I saw Federer suddenly change his racket half-way through his match, I couldn’t help but think, “Does he know exactly how many times he can hit the ball before the tension in his racket changes and starts to have an effect on his power?” and “I wonder if tennis players work with cricketers; is there a cross-over with putting spin on the ball and how to hit it?” Maybe they already do all of this…but it made me think!