Pewsey's Shelley Rudman, Britain’s 2006 Olympic Winter Games silver medallist, won the first World Cup medal of her 2009/10 campaign by taking silver at Lake Placid in the USA today.

Rudman climbed from fourth place at the halfway mark to finish second behind Canada’s Mellisa Holingsworth by 0.23 seconds in the second World Cup of the season.

Teammate Amy Williams finished just outside the medals in fourth, while Donna Creighton’s ninth place was her first top-10 World Cup finish.

Rudman was 0.19 seconds behind Hollingsworth in fourth place after the first of two runs but produced a strong second run to force her way on to the podium.

Germany’s Marion Trott, in third place after the first run, couldn’t better Rudman’s performance, guaranteeing Rudman at least a bronze medal with two sliders to go.

Williams had gone into the second run in second place, just 0.02 seconds behind the Canadian, but dropped just out of contention for the medals after losing some time coming out of corner 14.

Hollingsworth continued her domination of the event at Lake Placid by setting the fastest time of the second run, ensuring she captured gold.

Earlier, Britain’s Creighton produced the fastest start of the day on her second run, helping her to climb from 12th to ninth place overall.

“It’s been a good result for the whole team today,” said Andi Schmid, British Skeleton Performance Director.

Round 2 of the men’s skeleton World Cup takes place later today, also at Lake Placid.

The next round of the World Cup is in Europe, where both the men and women compete at Cesana in Italy on Friday December 4.