Coltman is Queen of Europe
Amelia Coltman’s dream start to her skeleton career continued on Saturday when she became the first Brit to win the overall Europa Cup title in her first season of competitive sliding.
Coltman claimed the eight-race EC crown after backing up Friday’s bronze medal with a fourth-place finish in Altenberg, Germany, this morning.
The 23-year-old from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire collected five medals in total across the last two months, winning two gold, two bronze and a silver to finish well clear at the top of the rankings despite sitting out last week’s sixth race of the season in Sigulda.
Britain’s most successful Winter Olympian, Lizzy Yarnold, won overall EC silver in her debut season in 2010/11 and Brogan Crowley won gold in 2017/18 two years into her international career but Coltman is the first to finish top of the standings in her very first season of competition.
“It’s an amazing feeling to be overall EC Champion. I never imagined I’d be saying that at the start of the season!” said Coltman, who joins an illustrious list of winners that includes reigning World Champion Tina Hermann.
I’m really proud to have won for my country - it’s something I always dreamt about doing - and it feels just as good as I hoped it would!
“It’s been a brilliant couple of months and I want it to be a platform to kick on from. Hopefully this is just the start for me but I’m not the type of person who’ll be getting carried away with this.
“Big thanks to all my coaches who have helped me get here - I definitely couldn’t have done it without them.”
A county badminton doubles champion and national mixed doubles champion in tennis prior to joining the British Skeleton programme in the summer of 2017, Coltman only made her racing debut at the beginning of December.
She won silver on her very first start in Winterberg, before completing a full house of medals by adding gold and then bronze in the following week’s back-to-back races in Konigssee.
A second gold followed in Igls less than 24 hours after she finished fifth at the same track and she cemented her place at the top with yesterday’s second bronze of the season.
Coltman eventually finished 43 points clear of overall silver medallist Endija Terauda of Latvia and 85 ahead of Russia’s Alina Taraychenkova in third.
Amelia Coltman (top, centre) was never outside the top five this term
Fellow Brit Hannah Stevenson placed seventh overall after winning the opening race of the season seven weeks ago. Rachel Hanagan finished 19th having only competed in six of the eight races in her debut season.
In the men’s competition, Matt Weston led the way for Great Britain by finishing eighth overall. Just like Coltman, the former Junior England Taekwando international won bronze on Friday and was fourth today. Weston previously won silver in Innsbruck two weeks ago.
Benji Fulker and Laurence Bostock finished 16th and 17th in the standings after they placed 10th and 23rd and 16th and 12th respectively in Altenberg.
