Bobsleigh pioneer Bree Walker has steered Australian sledding to another landmark breakthrough at the world championships in Winterberg.
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A week after pulling off the best-ever Australian performance in the championships by finishing fourth in the monobob, she teamed up with push athlete Kiara Reddingius to enjoy a best-ever fifth place in the two-woman bob at the German resort.
It was the highest-ever placing for an Australian pairing at a championships traditionally dominated by European sliders, as the 31-year-old pilot Walker and 32-year-old Reddingius missed out on a medal by 1.16 seconds on Saturday.
The pair are continuing to make impressive improvement, which can be gauged by the fact that Walker and Reddingius finished 16th together at the Tokyo Olympics three years earlier.
But they were still no match for the top three German sleds, with pilot Lisa Buckwitz and Vanessa Mark, who crowned her 28th birthday with gold on the final day of the championships, winning in a combined time of 3min 43.99sec over the four runs.
Olympic champion Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi took silver, despite setting a course record 55.75sec in their final run, with Kim Kalicki and Leonie Fiebig third.
The American pairing of Kaysha Love and Azaria Hill finished fourth on their world championship debut, with the Australians only two-tenths of a second behind them.
American pilot Riley Tejcek crashed in all four runs - but still didn't finish last on Saturday.
Tejcek and push athlete Jasmine Jones crashed at the end of the final turn in the first two heats on Friday but continued because the sled did cross the finish line.
On Saturday, Tejcek and new partner Jestena Mattson tipped over again at the same place but still qualified for the fourth and final run where they crashed again a little earlier.
Despite the mishaps they finished 20th from 24 teams, and, thankfully, avoided injuries.
Australian Associated Press
