A KENT sportswoman is preparing for one of the most important few minutes of her life at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City next month. Michelle Coy, from Snodland, has been picked as Great Britain's No 2 driver in the women's bobsleigh, a sport included in the Games for the first time.

Coy, 30, a former student at St Simon Stock School at Maidstone, said: "It's brilliant to be selected. It is something I have been working towards for many years. It's the pinnacle of my career."

The gold medal will be decided by just two runs with the sleds reaching 85mph on the mile long course. It takes between 48 and 49 seconds for each run so there is no margin for error. Seventeen teams will be competing and Coy thinks that the outcome is totally open. "The sport is new to everyone and none of us have been to the Games before," she said.

Coy, an RAF corporal, has been training since April at Bath where the new £300,000 push start facility mirrors the one in Salt Lake City. She will not be lacking support at the Games. Her mother and father, Tony and Glennis, brother Peter and his wife Julie, and Julie's sister Alison, will all be flying out.

The women's bobsleigh is on Tuesday, February 19, and will be televised live on BBC2, starting at 11.30pm.