2010 Winter Olympics: Brits Breathe Sigh of Relief with Williams's Gold

Yesterday, Great Britain's Amy Williams won the women's skeleton gold medal at the Whistler Sliding Centre, becoming the first individual gold medalist since Robin Cousins in 1980.

In London, where the 2012 Summer Olympics will be held, fans were dancing in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park and waved the Union Jack, screaming into the Saturday morning air.

"Awesome! Awesome! Bout time, bout time!" exclaimed Peter Stevenson, a 32-year-old businessman from Hounslow. "I was just a little lad when we won our last gold in an individual event, and now I get to see Great Britain get another one. Hallelujah!"

"Without a question, I am sure that we will be making this a habit," said Jane Creed, an elementary schoolteacher from Epsom. "We need more gold medals because it will boost our morale heading into the Opening Ceremony at Stratford. This is a start."

Stratford upon Avon is where the Olympic Stadium will be located for the 2012 Games.

Outside the capital, it was party time all over the British Isles.

"I heard that the USA was filing a protest against us," said Mike Rotche, a  stuntman from Manchester. "Well guess what? [Expletive] it, Yanks! I don't care what protests you will try to get against our nation's new golden child, you will never break her, and you will never break us!"

"I'm in tears, simply in tears," said Amanda Huggenkiss, a 34-year-old crone from York. "30 years for an individual gold is a [expletive]ing long wait, and it's now over! I hope I don't get a heart attack after realizing this."

"Did you see that?" said Dan Druff, a professional caber tosser from Inverness. "Amy just whizzed down that track like a bullet angel. And she is hot as fire. I would love to shoot into her and get it off so desperate like I was her one and only. She is one of a kind."

"I've been waiting since Lake Placid for a miracle to happen," said Hugh "Jazz" Jaczynski, a Polish expatriate residing in Leeds. "This is our miracle on ice, and the Soviets aren't involved. Would you believe that!

"Amazing. Simply amazing. I will never forget this. Well, I won't forget {nor forgive} Simon Ammann beating my boy Adam Malysz, but that's a different story."

"Honesty is king here in Great Britain," said Edna Ethelred, a 59-year-old spinster from Swansea. "And I will be honest with you: this is the greatest day in winter sports in this country. I hope our curlers get the gold too, because we need to bring it back to the motherland."

In Cambridge, Williams' birthplace, there was plenty of drinking, dancing and revelry to be seen. Signs of congratulations, handshakes and hugs could be seen all around and proposals heard on the BBC.

"Marry me Amy, I'm single and I am lonely!" said an anonymous, intoxicated first-year student at Cambridge University's Lucy Cavendish College. "I may be a woman, but I believe in equal rights! I can treat you better than the other slouches in this pub, I swear!"

"I will sell my farm, my chicken and my life for you hand!" exclaimed a similarly scat-faced boor from Peterhouse College, Cambridge. "I'm serious.  Even my dignity! My dignity!"

"I have a number here, cameras, zoom in on it," said a third interested suitor at the pub from Darwin college. "Mr. and Mrs. Williams, please write it down, I want to pay a visit to your daughter, please! Please!"

"This just goes to show you how her gold has galvanized the whole of Britain into a debauchery the likes of which have never before seen," said Jacques Strap, the owner of the pub, called the "Homer Sexual Tavern. "I mean, this is our first gold overall since Salt Lake in 2002. It's a ludicrous reaction, but it's exciting."

"I thought Olympic Winter Sports in Britain was dead," said Seymour "Butz" Butzkowski-Jones of Accrington. "Guess I was wrong. But we really need to get more individual medalists at the Winter Olympics. The fact that we had to deal with the Curse of Robin Cousins for three [expletive]ing decades is  just unforgivable!"

Williams is also the first female individual Winter Olympic gold medalist from Great Britain since Jeannette Altwegg won it in figure skating during the 1952 Oslo Games.