From Winterberg, GER
(February 25, 2024) – The IBSF World Championships in Winterberg has not disappointed yet, with close races for gold in all three skeleton events. It continued that trend on Sunday with a wildly close women’s monobob championship.
The third heat of a four-heat race is often referred to as moving day, and that name run true at the top of the monobob field. Leader Lisa Buckwitz kicked things off with a clean run, but had her three-run combined downtime matched by Elana Meyers Taylor, and it felt like there would be a race-off for the gold.
But Bree Walker’s third effort was clean and quick, and fast enough to move her into the lead by .12 over Buckwitz and Meyers Taylor. Reigning champ Laura Nolte then took over by a tenth over Walker from fourth in the first heat to place four sliders in podium positions with one heat to go.
In that final heat Meyers Taylor went off the top first of the final four. The 2022 Olympic silver medalist in monobob tied for her best start of the competition and matched that effort with her quickest slide of the race to take the lead from Romania’s Andreea Grecu.
Buckwitz went next and matched Meyers Taylor both with the push and for the first half of her drive. However a late exit out of Curve 9 was enough to scrub speed off of her run, and the German finished her event .05 behind Meyers Taylor and in danger of missing out on the medals.
Walker’s final effort was her bumpiest of the competition. Off the top she hung with Meyers Taylor and Buckwitz, but small mistakes compounded and the Aussie finished her run .07 behind Buckwitz to guarantee Buckwitz a medal.
The final slider off was Nolte. Nolte’s start was slower than that of Meyers Taylor and early on Nolte backed up to almost even with the American. But nobody was better than Nolte below the Kreisel and Nolte’s fourth slide secured her a second straight IBSF World Championships title.[
The final result saw Nolte win by .18 over Meyers Taylor, with Buckwitz third, .23 behind Nolte.
Walker took fourth, .05 ahead of Grecu in fifth.
The United States had two women making their World Champs debut in monobob and they did not disappoint. Kaysha Love, winner of two World Cup gold medals this season, had four top seven runs including the fifth quickest in the final heat to finish sixth. Teammate Sylvia Hoffman tied Love for the quickest push in the third heat and moved up from eighth to seventh in the final heat to put all three American sleds well in the top ten.
Canada’s Cynthia Appiah finished in eighth place after sitting in second after the first heat. Her second run was just 13th quickest, but otherwise Appiah had three top-ten runs.
Great Britain’s Adele Nicoll had an outstanding showing in her first World Championships appearance with three ninth place runs to slide to ninth, just ahead of France’s Margot Boch in tenth.
Melissa Lotholz, the current North American Cup leader with two races to go, finished the event in 14th after a year off. Bianca Ribi closed out the Canadian effort in 17th.
Australia’s Sarah Blizzard finished 24th in her first IBSF World Championships.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Laura Nolte | GER | 2 | 58.59 | 58.83 | 58.73 | 58.62 | 3:54.77 |
| 2 | Elana Meyers Taylor | USA | 6 | 58.64 | 58.69 | 59.04 | 58.58 | 3:54.95 |
| 3 | Lisa Buckwitz | GER | 1 | 58.51 | 58.73 | 59.13 | 58.63 | 3:55.00 |
| 4 | Breeana Walker | AUS | 4 | 58.57 | 58.78 | 58.90 | 58.82 | 3:55.07 |
| 5 | Andreea Grecu | ROU | 5 | 58.78 | 58.72 | 58.94 | 58.68 | 3:55.12 |
| 6 | Kaysha Love | USA | 3 | 58.71 | 58.78 | 59.13 | 58.74 | 3:55.36 |
| 7 | Sylvia Hoffman | USA | 19 | 58.89 | 58.87 | 58.97 | 58.80 | 3:55.53 |
| 8 | Cynthia Appiah | CAN | 9 | 58.56 | 59.00 | 59.09 | 58.90 | 3:55.55 |
| 9 | Adele Nicoll | GBR | 12 | 58.89 | 58.96 | 59.38 | 58.91 | 3:56.14 |
| 10 | Margot Boch | FRA | 18 | 58.92 | 58.89 | 59.43 | 59.02 | 3:56.26 |
| 11 | Melanie Hasler | SUI | 7 | 58.88 | 58.98 | 59.65 | 58.97 | 3:56.48 |
| 12 | Kim Kalicki | GER | 26 | 59.06 | 58.85 | 59.59 | 59.07 | 3:56.57 |
| 13 | Debora Annen | SUI | 15 | 59.08 | 59.02 | 59.55 | 59.20 | 3:56.85 |
| 14 | Melissa Lotholz | CAN | 17 | 59.06 | 59.02 | 59.64 | 59.20 | 3:56.92 |
| 15 | Qing Ying | CHN | 8 | 59.15 | 58.96 | 59.71 | 59.34 | 3:57.16 |
| 16 | Katrin Beierl | AUT | 11 | 59.15 | 59.03 | 59.66 | 59.35 | 3:57.19 |
| 17 | Bianca Ribi | CAN | 10 | 59.29 | 59.01 | 59.65 | 59.26 | 3:57.21 |
| 18 | Kelly van Petegem | BEL | 16 | 59.33 | 59.17 | 59.77 | 59.26 | 3:57.53 |
| 19 | Linda Weiszewski | POL | 14 | 59.51 | 59.18 | 59.86 | 59.43 | 3:57.98 |
| 20 | Simidele Adeagbo | NGR | 25 | 59.52 | 59.27 | 59.78 | 60.24 | 3:58.81 |
| 21 | Viktoria Cernanska | SVK | 13 | 59.60 | 59.24 | 59.94 | 2:58.78 | |
| 22 | Patricia Tajcnarova | CZE | 20 | 59.51 | 59.68 | 59.61 | 2:58.80 | |
| 23 | Sarah Blizzard | AUS | 21 | 59.49 | 59.89 | 60.20 | 2:59.58 | |
| 24 | Lea Haslwanter | AUT | 24 | 59.68 | 59.63 | 60.35 | 2:59.66 | |
| 25 | Georgeta Popescu | ROU | 22 | 59.88 | 59.95 | 60.39 | 3:00.22 | |
| 26 | Loren Djolo | NED | 23 | 59.69 | 59.66 | 61.60 | 3:00.95 |
