Skeleton news - Skeleton shattered my body - Amy Williams
BySportsbeat
Updated 03/10/2018 at 16:00 GMT
Most Olympic champions claim winning gold changed their lives – all too true in the painful, yet proud, tale of Amy Williams.
Britain's skeleton pilot Amy Williams smiles as she attends an unoffical progressive two-women bobsleigh training at the Sanki sliding center in Rosa Khutor, a venue for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics near Sochi, February 5, 2014.
Image credit: Reuters
Williams will forever be remembered for her skeleton gold at the Winter Olympics in 2010 but this week revealed her 'broken' body won't let her forget the toll the sport has taken.
A serious crash at the age of 20 has condemned the 36-year-old to a life of severe back and neck pain, while her knees have been operated on four times.
Despite the pain that has caused Williams and her family to downgrade their town house to a bungalow, she insists winning Britain's first solo winter gold in 30 years was worth it.
"I'm a little bit broken," she told BBC Sport.
"My knees are definitely a result of wear and tear of training three times a day since I was 15 or 16.
"I get a lot of nerve pain and problems. That's why I finished, because I was on painkillers pretty much my whole career and epidural injections all the time.
The doctors were saying 'you should really stop this' and I thought 'yeah I should'.
"Now I just learn to live with it."
In 2002, well before she made her entry onto the international scene at the World Championships seven years later, a crash saw her slip a disc in her back.
With the consequences of that incident still far from resolved, Williams and husband Craig made the joint decision to relocate one-year-old son Oscar to a bungalow this year.
"My knees really do not like stairs or doing much at all," she said.
"It's hard because I'm still an active person. I still love to keep fit.
I started to do lots of yoga which is less stressful on the knees. I still like to go for a jog but if I go too far I then can't really walk for a week.
"I'm in the chiropractor every few weeks and it is quite tough. Sometimes you think 'was it worth it?' but instantly you say yes."
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement