Early career The following season in 2003, she qualified for the World Junior Championships and finished in tenth position. In 2004, she won the
Europa Cup in
Igls, Austria. In 2005, she won gold in the World University Games, held in
Innsbruck, Austria.
2006 Winter Olympics 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. Rudman also spent some time working as a supply teacher at
Devizes School, a secondary school in
Devizes, Wiltshire. By the time the
2006 Winter Olympics began in
Turin, Rudman said she was aiming for a top-ten position. In the first heat, she was fourth; after the second heat, she finished with a silver medal. On her return to Pewsey, the village gave her an open-top bus parade to recognize her achievement.
Skeleton World Cup performances: 2007–2009 Rudman finished tenth in the women's skeleton at
St. Moritz in the
2007 World Championships. She later announced that she was to become a mother in October and would consequently miss much of the following season. She sat out the
2007–08 Skeleton World Cup season to give birth to her daughter, and returned to the Inter-continental circuit in North America in January, where she finished second in
Park City and won the penultimate race in
Lake Placid. Rudman won the
2008–09 Skeleton World Cup event at Igls, Austria on 12 December 2008. She then earned the second medal of her 2008/09 World Cup campaign with a silver at
Königssee in Germany, in January 2009. She won the 2009 European Championships at St Moritz, breaking the track record with a time of 1:09.97 on her second run.
2009–2010: World Cup & Olympics Rudman repeated the feat of finishing the season in second place overall in the
World Cup, behind champion
Mellissa Hollingsworth. During the season, 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 also counted as the 2010 European Championships, and Rudman finished with the bronze medal. In January 2010, Rudman was announced as part of the
Team GB squad to compete at the
2010 Winter Olympics in
Vancouver, Canada. She was the
flagbearer for Great Britain at the
opening ceremony. 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 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
sixth overall; missing out on claiming a second Olympic medal. The gold was won by fellow British competitor
Amy Williams.
Later career Rudman became European champion in January 2011 after finishing 0.22 seconds ahead of second-placed
Anja Huber in Winterberg. The event also doubled up as a World Cup event, her fifth career win in the competition. After finishing runner-up in the Skeleton World Cup in the previous three years, Rudman secured the World Cup title at the end of the
2011–12 season. Earlier in the competition, she finished third in Altenberg and won gold in Königssee. Shen then finished second in St Moritz (behind her teammate Lizzy Yarnold), and third in Whistler. Another third-place finish in the last race of the season in
Calgary earned her a 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). In December 2012, Rudman won the
2012-13 World Cup event in
Winterberg. The following February, she became the first British woman to win the world skeleton championship, after finishing 0.57 seconds ahead of runner-up
Noelle Pikus-Pace in St Moritz. At the
2014 Winter Olympics, Rudman finished in
16th position. In September 2014, she announced that she would miss the forthcoming skeleton season as she was expecting her second child. A year later, she announced that she would also miss the
2015-16 World Cup season as she was extending her maternity leave. == Personal life ==