Lauryn Williams Wins U.S. Push Championship
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. – Miami Hurricanes legend Lauryn Williams added another championship to her storied athletic career.
Williams won the U.S. national bobsled push championship in the women’s brakeman division Thursday, finishing her two starts on the wheeled track at Lake Placid in 9.56 seconds.
“It was really inspiring to get back out there and be on the track and to win my first push championships,” Williams told the Associated Press. “I think it’s really awesome to see all of the new girls so bubbly and excited about bobsled, and I really relate to that feeling since that was me not even a year ago.”
A year ago, Williams was just beginning to dabble with bobsled, a sport completely foreign to her after a lengthy and successful career on the track as a sprinter.
Williams, who was recently named as one of 10 members of the 2015 UM Sports Hall of Fame class, is one of the most decorated track athletes in Miami history. A nine-time All-American, Williams won the 100-meter dash at the 2004 NCAA Championships. She was All-American in the 60-meter dash (2002, 2003, 2004,) the 100-meter dash (2002, 2003, 2004), the 4×100 meter relay (2003, 2004) and the 200-meter indoors (2004). She was named the 2002 BIG EAST Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, the 2004 BIG EAST Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year, and was a 11-time BIG EAST Champion. She left Miami holding seven school records.
Her incredibly successful career as a sprinter continue to blossom after her time at Miami. Williams represented the United States in three Summer Olympics, capturing the silver medal in the 100-meter dash at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and winning a gold medal as a member of the U.S. team that won the 4×100-meter relay in London.
After all her success on the track, the highly competitive Williams decided to try out bobsled. Her incredibly explosive burst made her an ideal candidate to be a brakeman, but no one knew how quickly she could transition from the track to the ice.
Williams proved to be a quick study, placing third at the 2013 U.S. Push Championships less than a week after she first touched a bobsled.
Much like the speed that made her an Olympic champion on the track, Williams blazed past the competition and earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team that would compete at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
But Williams’ journey from Summer Olympian to Winter Olympian did not end at the Opening Ceremonies. Paired with driver Elana Meyers, Williams set records in Sochi.
She became the ninth American to compete in different sports in the Summer and Winter Olympics and her first run down the track ended with a new track record, finishing in 57.26 seconds. Williams, who picked up bobsled in July 2013, set a record with her 5.13-second start time.
Williams picked up where she left off in Heat 2, besting her previous start record with a 5.12-second start time. Meyers then piloted USA-1 down the track for a heat-best time of 57.63 seconds.
The duo would earn a silver medal in Sochi and Williams became the first American woman to capture medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics and one of five people to medal in different sports at the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Following her success in Sochi, the 31-year-old Williams considered retirement just six months after getting in a sled for the first time.
But she kept her options open, never making her plans to step away officially, and now she’s expected to lead the push athletes on the women’s World Cup team this winter.
“I’m really looking forward to the season,” Williams told the AP.
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Information from the Associated Press was used in this piece.
