DESPITE winning the Jamaica Senior Championships in June, not many pundits gave Danielle Williams a chance of medalling here in Beijing. But that should not be a surprise because Danielle herself wasn’t too optimistic either.

“At the start of the season did I think this would be the outcome? No I did not. I was just hoping to make it to the final of the World Championships and hopefully be a factor in my event. I won. I am happy and looking forward to next year,” said an elated Williams.

The magnitude of the victory, however, did not resonate immediately with Williams.

“To be honest I feel no different. I don’t know what I am supposed to be feeling,” said Williams.

“It’s definitely a morale booster, I am the world champion and I will try and work hard and not get complacent and I have never been to the Olympics, so that’s the target right there,” she added.

Williams, just 22, gave superb display of hurdling and lowered her personal best twice in one day en route to capturing the gold at the World Championships in a time of 12.57 seconds.

Williams who recently won the World University Games gold medal has now won Jamaica’s first gold medal in the event since 2009 when Brigitte Foster-Hylton won the world title in Berlin.

Formerly of The Queen’s High School, Williams who now trains in North Carolina (USA) under the watchful eyes of Lennox Graham, ran almost the perfect race and at one point when it looked as though she would be caught, she found another gear for the most important win of her young career. She then paid tribute to her coach.

“We have been working on technique from the end of the Commonwealth Games straight up to the Championships. We have been working strenuously trying to fix my technique. I mean it has not been perfected but it’s a whole lot better,” said a beaming Williams. She continued: “So I am happy that I was able to do that and fixing the technique probably got me the gold medal here.”

Young Williams who idolises American Gail Devers because of their similarities of being very good in the 100m and the hurdles, revealed that she grew in confidence after her semi-final run and that was the time when she felt just a place in the final could become a place on the podium.

Commenting on her semi-final run the World Championships gold medallist said: “In the semi-finals, I realised that I had the fastest time going in but I wasn’t trying to get too ahead of myself and get too confident. It’s one race, one more to come and anything could happen in the final. I just tried to stay grounded, stay level-headed and focused on my task.”

And that’s exactly what Williams did, allowing her to run the race of her life that has now propelled her into the forefront of women’s sprint hurdling.

“When I looked up and I saw there were no Americans, I was trying to figure out what happened. So I watched the screen, but I haven’t watched it intensely to see what went wrong, but I’ll do that later,” said Williams.