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Born | [1] | 23 March 1981|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Education | BSc Sports Science - St Mary’s, Twickenham. Coach Education & Sports Performance - Bath University | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation | International Sports Consultancy. Owner of Shelley Rudman (SR) Gym & Personal Training. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 169 cm (5 ft 7 in) [2] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 56 kg (123 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Great Britain | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Skeleton | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Shelley Rudman (born 23 March 1981) is a skeleton bobsleigh athlete who was the 2013 world champion in the event. She won a silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and is a former World Cup and European champion.
Rudman was born in Swindon, [3] and later lived in Pewsey, Wiltshire, where she attended Pewsey Vale School. [4] She later attended New College, Swindon. [3]
She took up skeleton in October 2002, after a university friend and skeleton athlete introduced her to the sport at the University of Bath push track. At the time, she was working full-time at the ACS International Schools, Cobham, Surrey and was in her third year of a Bachelor of Science degree course at St Mary's College, Twickenham.[ citation needed ]
After unsuccessfully seeking a place on Bath University's skeleton development team, she decided to apply for an ice school in Norway run by the British military to pursue the sport.[ citation needed ]
The following season in 2003 (after having only three weeks on-ice training since starting the sport), she qualified for the World Junior Championships where she finished in 10th position and was the highest-ranked British woman.[ citation needed ] In 2004, she won the Europa Cup in Igls, Austria. In 2005, she won gold in the World University Games, held in Innsbruck, Austria. [5]
In order to take part in the 2006 Olympics, Rudman needed £4,000 to buy a new sled. Her home town held a sponsored canoe event (canoeing from Pewsey to Bath, where she was training) to help raise the money. [6] Rudman also spent some time working as a supply teacher at Devizes School, a secondary school in Devizes, Wiltshire.[ citation needed ]
By the time the 2006 Winter Olympics began in Turin, Rudman said she was aiming for a top 10 position; however, during a practice run she had the fastest time. In the first heat, she was 4th; after the second heat, she finished with a silver medal. [7] Live television pictures were shown from her local pub, where a large crowd that had gathered to watch her race were cheering and celebrating her victory. [4] On her return to Pewsey, the village put on an open top bus tour where thousands of people attended to witness her return. [8]
After a summer of media commitments after winning her silver medal, Rudman returned to the British selection races in Lillehammer where she set an unofficial track record. During the season an ongoing knee injury flared up; she had intensive physiotherapy to get her through the remaining World Cup rounds, before returning to the UK after the World Championships in St Moritz to have immediate knee surgery.[ citation needed ]
Rudman's best finish at the FIBT World Championships was 10th in the women's skeleton event at St. Moritz in 2007. She later announced that she was to become a mother in October and would be taking half the following season off. [9]
She sat out the 2007–08 Skeleton World Cup season to give birth to her daughter Ella Marie and have a knee operation (although she returned to the Inter-continental circuit in North America in January where she finished second (Park City) and won the penultimate race in Lake Placid), and made an impact on her return to the sport for the 2008–09 season. Rudman won the 2008–09 Skeleton World Cup event at Igls, Austria on 12 December 2008. [10] She then earned her second medal of her 2008/09 World Cup campaign with a silver medal at Königssee in Germany, in January 2009.
She won the 2009 European Bob Skeleton Championships at the St Moritz track in Switzerland, breaking the track record with a time of 1:09.97 on her second run.
Rudman repeated her feat of finishing the season in 2nd place overall in the World Cup, behind champion Mellissa Hollingsworth of Canada. Over the 8-round seasons, she took gold medal wins in Cesana and St. Moritz, a second place in Lake Placid and a third place at Konigssee. The last race of the season in Igls, Austria, also counted as the 2010 European Championships, and Rudman finished with the bronze medal in 3rd place.[ circular reference ]
On 29 January 2010, Rudman was officially announced as part of the Team GB Skeleton Bobsleigh squad to compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. She was the flagbearer for Britain at those games.
An hour's delay to the race start affected the settings Rudman had chosen for the first run, which resulted in her finishing low in the overall standings after day one. The following day, after analysing and changing her settings, she set the fastest time of the day, breaking her push start personal best, but the time deficit from the previous day was too much to catch up and she finished 6th overall in the women's skeleton – just missing out on claiming a second Olympic medal. The gold was won by fellow British competitor Amy Williams.
After coming second in the Skeleton World Cup for the previous three years, Rudman secured the World Cup title at the end of the 2011–12 season. A third place finish in the last race of the season in Calgary, Canada, gave the UK athlete her fifth podium finish of the season and moved her to the top of the final rankings ahead of German duo Marion Thees (2nd) and Anja Huber (3rd). [11]
Based on end of season FIBT rankings.[ citation needed ]
Rudman is married to fellow British skeleton competitor Kristan Bromley, with whom she has a daughter born in October 2007, [12] and another in January 2015. [13] [14]
In February 2016, Rudman was nominated to be an International Olympic Committee Athlete Role Model for the Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
In 2017, Rudman set up a fitness gym business in her home county of Wiltshire. [15]
Kristan Bromley is a retired British skeleton racer who has competed since 1996. He won the gold medal in the men's event at the 2008 FIBT World Championships in Altenberg, Germany. This was Great Britain's first gold medal at the FIBT World Championships since 1965.
Maya Pedersen-Bieri is a Swiss-Norwegian skeleton racer who has competed since 1995. She won the gold medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. She retired from the sport in 2010 before returning to compete for Norway in 2016, becoming at the oldest woman to start a World Cup race when she returned to the top level of skeleton in 2017. She is listed in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation athlete registration system as Maya Pedersen.
Helen Lesley Upperton is a Canadian bobsledder who has competed since 2002. Upperton was born in Ahmadi, Kuwait as her parents involvement in the oil industry meant they traveled abroad. She holds dual citizenship of both Great Britain and Canada. Upperton won the silver medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics after previously finishing fourth in the two-woman event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. In 2020 Upperton won a Canadian Screen Award for “Best Sports Analyst” for her coverage of the Bobsleigh World Championship event with Mark Lee. She went to high school at Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School and graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a BSc.
Heather Moyse is a Canadian athlete and two-time Olympic gold medalist, representing Canada in international competition as a bobsledder, rugby union player, and track cyclist and competing at the Canadian intercollegiate level in rugby, soccer and track and field.
Sandra Kiriasis is a German former bobsledder who has competed from 2000 to 2014.
Shauna Linn Rohbock is a retired Olympic medal-winning bobsledder, former professional soccer player, and is a staff sergeant in the Utah Army National Guard. After retiring from competitions she worked as a bobsled coach at the Utah Olympic Park.
Noelle Pikus-Pace is an American retired skeleton racer who began her career in 2001. She won five medals at the FIBT World Championships, competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and won the silver medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Susi-Lisa Erdmann is an East German-German luger and bobsledder who competed from 1977 to 1998 in luge, then since 1999 in bobsleigh. She was born in Blankenburg, Bezirk Magdeburg. Competing in five Winter Olympics, she won two medals in the women's singles luge event with a silver in 1994 and a bronze in 1992, and a bronze at the inaugural two-women bobsleigh event in 2002. She is one of only two people to ever win a medal in both bobsleigh and luge at the Winter Olympics; Italy's Gerda Weissensteiner is the other.
Anne O'Shea is an American skeleton racer. She got interested in skeleton after meeting the father of skeletoner John Daly at the Empire State Games in 2004, and was first selected to the national team in 2006; like many skeleton and bobsled racers, she came to the sport from track and field. O'Shea attended California University of Pennsylvania. She has won the national championship three times in her career, and was twice selected USA Bobsled-Skeleton Athlete of the Year. Away from the track, O'Shea is an MBA student at DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management.
Oskars Melbārdis is a former Latvian bobsledder who has competed since 2006. He is the most successful bobsledder in the history of his country, having won one gold and two bronze Olympic medals. He also earned the first-ever gold medal for Latvia at World Championships in Igls, preceded by one silver and two bronze medals in 2009–2015.
Kaillie Humphries is a Canadian-American bobsledder. Representing Canada, she was the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion in the two-woman bobsled and the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist with brakewoman Phylicia George. With her victory in 2014, she became the first female bobsledder to defend her Olympic title and was named flagbearer for the Olympic closing ceremony with brakewoman Heather Moyse.
The women's skeleton at the 2006 Winter Olympics took place on 16 February, at the Cesana Pariol.
The women's skeleton event at the 2010 Winter Olympics took place at the Whistler Sliding Centre on 18–19 February. The competition was won by British athlete Amy Williams, who set new course records for the track on her first and third runs. Williams, who had never before won a World Cup or World Championship event, became the first British athlete to win a solo Winter Olympic gold medal in 30 years. German sliders Kerstin Szymkowiak and Anja Huber won the silver and bronze medals respectively. Williams' teammate Shelley Rudman, who had won the silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and Canadian Mellisa Hollingsworth, both of whom had been expected to be in medal contention, were disappointed.
Elena Valeryevna Nikitina is a Russian skeleton racer who joined the national squad in 2009. She rides a Schneider sled, and her coach is Denis Alimov. Before starting skeleton, she was an association football player.
Sophia Griebel is a German skeleton racer who has raced at the Winter Olympics and the Skeleton World Cup. She started racing skeleton in 2005 and was selected to the German national team in 2008; she was a luger before switching to skeleton. Her personal coach is Christian Baude and she uses an FES sled. Away from sport, she works for the German Federal Police. Griebel was injured in 2016 and spent 18 months recovering before returning to the World Cup circuit in November 2017, but after poor showings in the season's first two races, she was replaced on the German World Cup squad by Anna Fernstädt.
Marina Gilardoni is a Swiss skeleton racer and former bobsleigh brakewoman. After starting her sporting career in heptathlon at the club level, Gilardoni began racing bobsleigh in 2007 and earned a place on the Swiss national team. She won gold medals at the Junior World Championships in 2008 behind driver Fabienne Meyer and in 2010 with Sabina Hafner driving. After the 2009–10 season, she switched from bobsleigh to skeleton. In 2018, Gilardoni was selected to represent Switzerland in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after the Dutch Olympic Committee refused one of their two entries and it was reallocated to Switzerland.
Jacqueline "Jacka" Pfeifer is a German skeleton racer who has won numerous races and championships, including the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics skeleton competition in 2012 and the 2017 World Championships. Pfeifer began competing in skeleton at the age of 12 and was selected to the German national team in 2009. She won her first two international races, as a fifteen-year-old on the Europe Cup circuit, at Cesana Pariol in 2010. Her personal coach is Kathi Wichterle, and she rides an FES sled. When not racing, Pfeifer works for the German Federal Police.
Tina Hermann is a German skeleton racer and a four-time World champion. She began racing in 2007 and was selected to the national team in 2009. She is coached by Dirk Matschenz (personal) and Jens Müller (national); away from the track, she is a police officer.
Kendall Lorraine Wesenberg is an American skeleton racer who competes on the Skeleton World Cup circuit. Wesenberg attended the University of Colorado, where she studied business administration, and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She began racing skeleton in 2014. Wesenberg was named, along with Katie Uhlaender, to represent the U.S. in women's skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Julia Taubitz is a German luger.