WINTER SPORT Amy Williams and Rose McGrandle will both compete at next week's skeleton World Championships at Lake Placid after dominating the final two rounds of skeleton's Intercontinental Cup series.

Both University of Bath- based sliders finished inside the top 20 of the FIBT ranking list after ending the regular season on a high in North America.

McGrandle eclipsed the Olympic champion with back-to-back victories in Park City, United States, with Williams finishing second and fourth respectively in the series' seventh and eighth races.

The pair had also notched up a win apiece in Calgary a week earlier and McGrandle's performances earned her the overall Intercontinental crown, ahead of fellow Brit Donna Creighton in second.

In the men's competition, Ed Smith was third and David Swift fifth in the final standings, while GB team-mate Dominic Parsons – making his first Intercontinental outing of the season – also claimed a brace of top-seven finishes in Park City.

A hugely successful week for British Skeleton also saw Lizzy Yarnold – who does some of her training in Bath – win the World Cup race in Calgary and Shelley Rudman clinch the overall crown for the first time.

Williams and McGrandle joined them in Canada this week for testing ahead of the Worlds, which take place over four runs on February 23 and 24.

Former Hayesfield School pupil Williams will be making her first appearance in the competition since she took silver at the same venue in 2009 – a breakthrough performance that laid down a marker for her sensational triumph at Vancouver 12 months later.

In her three previous outings at the season-ending Worlds, Williams has never finished outside the top seven.

Bath's Adam Pengilly, who also finished a superb second at Lake Placid three years ago, came 15th in the final round of the men's World Cup series in Calgary, leaving him 13th in the overall standings.

The World Championships open with the bobsleigh competition this weekend.

Britain's number one female driver, Paula Walker, goes into the event buoyed by a sixth- placed finish – her best of the season – alongside brake- woman Gillian Cooke in Calgary.

Walker's partner, John Jackson, and brakeman Bruce Tasker were 19th in the two-man race but improved to tenth with the support of Joel Fearon and Stuart Benson in Sunday's four-man discipline.