Shelley's Sled to Silver
16th February 2006
Congratulations to local girl Pewsey's Shelley Rudman who has won the silver medal in the women’s skeleton at Winter Olympics 2006.

The 24-year-old Wiltshire girl, Wiltshire's Ice Queen, produced the performance of her life to make up two places and more than a quarter of a second on her two closest rivals. She said: “I just can’t believe it. I’m so shocked. It feels really surreal ”

Rudman insisted she had not got carried away with her chances after finishing fastest in a final training run. She said: “I didn’t expect too much and I didn’t change a thing. Near the bottom my head was pinned down more so I felt it was a good run - I made a few mistakes in my first run but I was able to make corrections between runs. She recorded an overall time of two minutes 1.06 seconds - 1.23 seconds behind Swiss champion Maya Pedersen

“I hope this result has put skeleton on the map and it will make a lot more people aware of skeleton and able to fund it. We are at a disadvantage here but we are doing really well.”

Less than four years after taking up skeleton bob racing, Shelley is ranked fifth in the world. Its amazing that Shelley has starred in an ice sport where her home village in Wiltshire hardly sees any snow compared to the rest of Europe.

Shelley, a classroom manager at Devizes School Sports College, took up the skeleton bob after having a trial run while on a sports science course at Bath University in 2002. Her flare for the sport was immediately apparent and within two years she was British champion.

The kind hearted villager's of Pewsey heard that Shelley was having difficulty in covering her training costs an appeal was launched raising more than £4,000 to help her on her way to the games she had set her sights on.

Jerry Kunkler, landlord of the Moonrakers, said after her silver success "We had a big crowd in to watch her on the pub's giant screen. Everyone in the village is behind her, and the fundraising efforts are worth every penny, for our hero Shelley. We're so proud of her" said Mr Kunkler.

The accolades in the UK started immediately and Tessa Jowell, secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “Congratulations to Shelley Rudman - it’s a tremendous achievement winning the silver medal in the skeleton. “It shows what you can achieve with hard work and determination. She’s made us very proud.”

Rudman, fastest in the final practice session, had finished the first run in fourth place but responded with a faultless performance to move into the medals.

Switzerland’s Maya Pedersen was fastest in each of the two runs to grab gold while Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards of Canada held her first run place of third. Rudman’s medal was Britain’s first of the Winter Games and followed fellow Wiltshire girl Alex Coomber’s bronze in the same competition in Salt Lake City four years ago. But, while Coomber had been widely expected to strike gold, Rudman was considered an outside chance at best having never previously reached the podium in her World Cup career.