Having delayed her start to the 2010/11 skeleton season as part of her preparations to be in the best possible shape in the lead up to the Sochi 2014 Games, Williams will take part  in the fifth skeleton World Cup of the season at the Igls track in Austria.

Williams, whose victory on February 20 last year made her the first British individual gold medallist at a Winter Games for 30 years, has been training through the winter at her University of Bath training base, home to the British Skeleton programme.

She had some practice runs at Igls earlier this week - her first time on the ice since she slid to Olympic glory just under a year ago.

"It feels a little bit strange, my last run on the ice before I got here was at the Olympic Games," she said.

"I've had quite a chilled out week before the other competitors get here and I'm looking forward to competing again.

"Pushing on the ice feels a bit strange, but the slides are going well.

"I always want to do the best I can, but I have to remember that everyone else has been competing for three months.

"The first week of the season is always the hardest to adapt to, so I don't have huge expectations at this stage.

"Anything can happen and we will have to wait and see.

"Igls is quite a slow track and the corners aren't huge, but it's also very hard to find those extra 10ths of a second, so it can also be quite frustrating."

Williams was made an MBE for Services to Sport following her gold-medal winning performance at Vancouver and became only the fifth person since the Second World War to be made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Bath.

The 28-year-old also featured on the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

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