One disappointing remaining run has left monobob star Bree Walker’s hopes of incomes a historic world championship bobsleigh gold for Australia in ruins.
Instead of turning into the primary Aussie medallist in 94 years of the world championships, Walker had the agony of seeing her silver medal place going into the fourth and final run in Winterberg on Sunday bump frustratingly right into a fourth-placed end.
The 31-year-old Victorian ultimately missed out on the bronze by simply 0.07 seconds, and appeared the image of disappointment as she hung her head within the cockpit of her sled on the German resort after the near-miss.
A blinding third run on Sunday morning, the second better of all of the finalists, had put Walker proper within the hunt for the gold, pushing her up from her in a single day place of third to second, a mere one-tenth of a second behind the chief, Germany’s defending champion Laura Nolte.
But simply when she wanted to seek out the shape that has transported her to 4 World Cup podium finishes this season, Walker had her worst outing of the weekend.
Clipping the chute wall on three events, her lead, nonetheless in tact on the second intermediate checkpoint, began to vanish, as she clocked 58.82 seconds, which was to show seventh quickest of the spherical.
Left to hope Nolte would make a mistake because the final to go, Walker’s probabilities disappeared because the German roared down in 58.62sec, the second quickest of the spherical, to reclaim the gold in a four-round whole time of 3min 54.77sec.
It put her 0.18sec forward of American Olympic silver medallist Elana Meyers Taylor and 0.23sec away from fellow German Lisa Buckwitz, whereas Walker completed 0.30sec behind the winner.
It was the second yr working that the Australian had completed fourth.
This was an enormous disappointment for the previous hurdler-turned-winter sports activities star Walker, who had been a mannequin of consistency earlier on the World Cup circuit this season with two World Cup silvers and two bronze.
But her greatest kind had abandoned her within the two lead-up occasions to Winterberg, as she completed ninth in Sigulda, Latvia, and seventh in Altenberg, Germany.
Her remaining huge hope this season can be to complete within the top-three within the total standings after the ultimate occasion in Lake Placid. Again, she’s at the moment in fourth place, simply behind American Kaysha Love with Buckwitz main and Nolte second.
She’ll even be competing with brakewoman Kiara Reddingius within the Australian two-woman bob when the world championships proceed on Friday.
https://thewest.com.au/sport/olympics/walker-just-misses-first-aussie-world-bobsleigh-medal-c-13728232
