From St. Moritz, SUI
(February 4, 2023) – Over her relatively short career on the sliding sport world stage, Germany’s Kim Kalicki has seen her fair share of success with five World Cup gold medals to her name as well as being the current World Cup point leader. But in the two World Championships she’s competed in, she’d finished second twice.
On Saturday she did one better and won gold in St. Moritz.
Kalicki entered the second day of competition in second place, sandwiched in between teammates Lisa Buckwitz in first and Laura Nolte in third. Just out of the medals but well within contention was the United States’ Kaillie Humphries in fourth, less than a quarter second back.
On the third run Kalicki took over as the leader, edging ahead of Buckwitz by just .06. Nolte crashed on her third run and did not record a time, which moved Humphries solidly into third place by .75 over Swiss pilot Melanie Hasler.
On the fourth run Humphries solidified her medal by sliding into the lead with only Buckwitz and Kalicki to go. Buckwitz was next, and set the fast run of the day to move ahead of Humphries.
That left Kalicki. She and brakewoman Leonie Fiebig set the quick start for the third time in four heats. Kalicki’s drive wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to stay ahead of Buckwitz by .05 to win her first ever world championship title with Buckwitz silver and Humphries gold.
Afterward, Kalicki credited part of her win to some knowledge teammate Francesco Friedrich passed along.
“Yesterday I talked to Francesco and he gave me a few tips, and today I slid much better than yesterday,” Kalicki said of her race. “I showed that I could win an event like this!”
Brakewoman Leonie Fiebig said that the three top starts in four heats were due to a season of hard work.
“We’ve worked so hard all year and it feels great now that the hard work is paying off.”
Despite missing out on gold by just a few hundredths of a second, Buckwitz was thrilled with how her first IBSF World Championships went as a pilot.
“In the second run I had a mistake at the horseshoe, there I lost time,” Buckwitz said. “Otherwise it might have ended differently again. I’m totally happy with silver.”
Humphries’ bronze medal came on the heels of a relatively rough ankle sprain. Despite that, she and brakewoman Kaysha Love put together the third quickest start in the final three runs. Afterward, Humphries credited her team on getting her ready to push.
“My ankle was okay,” said Humphries. “I definitely rolled it really bad and it’s really bruised and swollen. But it’s Worlds, and you need to put your best foot forward and we did that. We taped it up, and just pushed through it and dealt with everything that came. We have a great therapeutic team behind me who helped me get race-ready so I wouldn’t have to think about anything other than pushing and driving.”
Humphries medal gave her eight in the IBSF World Championships, a record on the women’s side.
Swiss pilot Melanie Hasler scored her best ever World Championships finish in fourth place alongside brakewoman Nadja Pasternack, one spot ahead of Margot Boch and Carla Senechal in fifth. That fifth place finish for Boch was both her best World Championships finish and tied for best ever finish in a World Cup or World Champs.
Junior world champion Maureen Zimmer finished sixth.
Canada’s Cynthia Appiah began the day in 11th place, but rallied with two strong slides alongside brakewoman Niamh Haughey to finish eighth.
“I wanted to clean up things from day one,” Appiah said of her competition. “I was really disappointed in how I slid yesterday. So today was just me trying to move up as high as I could in the standings and I did better than my last worlds. So I’m still improving!”
Bianca Ribi moved up from 14th to finish 13th, one spot behind Nicole Vogt.
Vogt and brakewoman Jasmine Jones improved throughout the competition and had the ninth quickest push of the final heat to finish in that 12th spot.
USA’s Riley Compton and brakewoman Emily Renna had four consistent starts throughout the race on their way to a 17th place result.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Kalicki / Fiebig | GER | 10 | 68.16 | 67.96 | 68.41 | 68.33 | 4:32.86 |
| 2 | Buckwitz / Lipperheide | GER | 4 | 68.03 | 68.04 | 68.52 | 68.32 | 4:32.91 |
| 3 | Humphries / Love | USA | 8 | 68.28 | 68.08 | 68.41 | 68.60 | 4:33.37 |
| 4 | Hasler / Pasternack | SUI | 7 | 68.83 | 67.90 | 68.79 | 68.77 | 4:34.29 |
| 5 | Boch / Senechal | FRA | 18 | 78.87 | 78.41 | 69.11 | 69.39 | 4:35.78 |
| 6 | Zimmer / Siebert | GER | 16 | 78.34 | 78.81 | 69.71 | 68.99 | 4:35.85 |
| 7 | Fontanive / Morell | SUI | 11 | 68.95 | 68.73 | 69.38 | 69.11 | 4:36.17 |
| 8 | Appiah / Haughey | CAN | 5 | 69.11 | 68.78 | 69.35 | 69.23 | 4:36.47 |
| 9 | Ying / Wang | CHN | 3 | 68.99 | 68.72 | 59.50 | 69.33 | 4:36.54 |
| 10 | Huai / Wang | CHN | 15 | 69.14 | 68.55 | 69.66 | 69.23 | 4:36.58 |
| 11 | Grecu / Vlad | ROU | 2 | 69.20 | 68.95 | 69.54 | 69.12 | 4:36.81 |
| 12 | Vogt / Jones | USA | 1 | 69.16 | 68.94 | 69.63 | 69.27 | 4:37.00 |
| 13 | Ribi / Voss | CAN | 6 | 69.45 | 69.00 | 69.31 | 69.41 | 4:37.16 |
| 14 | Cernanska / Mokrasova | SVK | 12 | 69.49 | 69.14 | 69.89 | 69.72 | 4:38.24 |
| 15 | Andruetti / Vicenzino | ITA | 17 | 69.51 | 69.30 | 69.95 | 70.14 | 4:38.90 |
| 16 | Weiszewski / Zandecka | POL | 19 | 70.01 | 70.03 | 69.93 | 69.61 | 4:39.58 |
| 17 | Compton / Renna | USA | 13 | 69.98 | 69.62 | 69.92 | 70.16 | 4:39.68 |
| 18 | Popescu / Sarbu | ROU | 14 | 70.32 | 69.66 | 70.18 | 70.31 | 4:40.47 |
| DNF | Nolte / Schuten | GER | 9 | 68.21 | 68.00 | DNF |
