Bobsled pioneer Bree Walker has led Australian sledding to another breakthrough at the World Championships in Winterberg.
A week after finishing fourth in the monobob event, Australia's best-ever result, she teamed up with push athlete Chiara Redius to finish the best five ever in the two-woman bob event at the German resort. Achieved first place.
On Saturday, 31-year-old pilot Walker and 32-year-old Redius missed out on a medal by 1.16 seconds, making it the highest-ever finish for an Australian pair at a championship traditionally dominated by European sliders.
The pair continue to make impressive progress, as evidenced by the fact that Walker and Redius finished 16th together at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
However, they still fell short of the top three German sledders, pilot Lisa Buckwitz and Vanessa Mark, who won the gold medal on her 28th birthday on the final day of the championship, with a total time of 3 minutes 43.99 seconds over four runs. won the championship.
Olympic champions Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi won silver despite setting a course record of 55.75 seconds on their final run, with Kim Kalicki and Leonie Fiebig third.
The American pair of Keisha Love and Azaria Hill finished fourth in their world championship debut, just 0.2 seconds behind the Australians.
American pilot Riley Teichek crashed on all four runs, but that didn't stop him from finishing in last place on Saturday.
Teycek and push athlete Jasmine Jones crashed at the end of the final turn in Friday's first two heats, but their sleds crossed the finish line and they continued.
On Saturday, Tejcek and new partner Jestena Mattsson crashed again at the same spot, but qualified for the fourth and final run before crashing again shortly before that.
Despite the accident, they finished 20th out of 24 teams and fortunately avoided injuries.
