Williams took time off after her success in Vancouver

By Ollie Williams

Winter Olympic champion Amy Williams will return to competitive skeleton early in 2011, BBC Sport understands.

Williams, 28, won GB's only medal at the Vancouver Games in February but has taken time out of the sport since her victory on the Whistler track.

"She had a busy time after the Games and a lot of commitments but she's back in training," said GB Skeleton performance director Andi Schmid.

However, Williams may yet miss the 2011 World Championships in Germany.

The first World Cup race of the skeleton season is due to take place in Whistler later this month but Williams is expected to miss the first month of the campaign before returning to international competition after Christmas.

Other British skeleton athletes will be competing, though, which means Williams will face a fight to win a place in the team for the World Championships, which are being staged in the German resort of Koenigssee in February.

The Cambridge-born contender for Sports Personality of the Year, who trains in Bath, finished fifth in last season's world rankings.

British team-mate Shelley Rudman ended the season in second spot but could only finish sixth at the Winter Games.

Williams defeated Germany's Kerstin Szymkowiak by a margin of 0.56 seconds to win gold after Canadian favourite Mellisa Hollingsworth dropped out of the reckoning.

"Amy is possibly not where she should be [ahead of the new season] but that's normal, we expected that," Schmid told BBC Sport.

"We needed to give her a bit of time to recharge her batteries and be fully fit for the season."

British Skeleton has diverted resources to the discovery of younger talent in the months since the Winter Olympics, but Schmid must wait for next month's winter sports funding announcement before making further progress.

"After the Games we immediately worked with a new talent group in Lake Placid [in the American state of New York]," he said.

"The summer was all about future planning and working on funding. We all know the money difficulties in every country in Europe, so it was hard to get a decision [on funding].

"That was very disappointing for us at the beginning because, with a gold medal, you would not expect any difficulties.

"I hope we get a positive decision, we worked hard for that."

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