From Sigulda, LAT
(December 13, 2024) – At the beginning of the 2024 calendar year, reigning World Cup champion Kimberley Bos finished sixth in Sigulda. She’d entered the second heat in 15th place after a bumpy run, but then threw down a track record in the second heat to slide into the top six.
In the last race of the 2024 calendar year Bos once again set a track record, and this time it led her to a gold medal.
Bos was the second slider off the top, and combined a top six push with a nearly flawless slide to take a lead that nobody would get within .3 of with a 51.11 record time.
Behind Bos, reigning World and Olympic champion Hannah Neise entered the second heat in second place, only .05 ahead of Janine Flock, a three-time winner in Sigulda. Kim Meylemans and Freya Tarbit sat off the provisional podium after the first, on the outside looking in.
In the second heat, Tarbit was unable to match her first effort and fell slightly down the leaderboard, eventually finishing in eighth. Meylemans went next, and put down a run that nearly mirrored her first effort and was enough to take the lead with the three medal contenders ahead of her.
Flock was next off the top. In the five World Cup races leading up to this, she’d only finished off the podium once, and never outside the top five. She guaranteed herself another podium with a run that was only a little skiddy at the bottom, but more than enough to take the lead.
Neise’s second effort, on the other hand, wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for as the German slider fell behind Meylemans by .05 to give the Belgian her second medal in as many weeks.
In a bit of a reverse look to her previous track record race in Sigulda, Bos wasn’t nearly as quick or clean in her second run as she was in her first. But this time she did not need to be, as her eighth quickest run of the heat was still enough to beat out Flock by .16 for her first gold of the season.
Bos joins Amelia Coltman (Pyeongchang 1), Freya Tarbit (Pyeongchang 2), Dan Zhao (Yanqing) and Kim Meyleman (Altenberg) as the fifth winner on the season.
Flock took silver, and Meylemans bronze. The silver ties Flock with Tina Hermann for all-time World Cup podiums with 39.
Neise finished fourth, with Great Britain’s Amelia Coltman in fifth, just .11 off of the podium.
Germany’s Susanne Kreher slid up from tenth to sixth.
Mystique Ro had a pair of top three starts on her way to a seventh place finish to lead the way for the United States, her first top ten of the 2024/2025 season. Katie Uhlaender put down a solid second run to move up from 20th in the first heat to a tie for 16th with China’s Dan Zhao. One of the sliders she picked off on that climb was teammate Kelly Curtis, who fell to a tie for 20th with Swiss slider Sara Schmied, a personal best for Schmied.
Sara Roderick rounded out the American effort in 27th.
Like Kimberley Bos in February, Great Britain’s Tabitha Stoecker put down a mammoth second effort after a disappointing first run had left her in 15th. While she wasn’t able to crack the top ten, her heat-quickest second slide was .75 faster than her first and enough to move her up to ninth, just behind Tarbit.
Jane Channell finished 12th as the top Canadian. Teammate Grace Dafoe finished 29th, a season’s best in her first ever look at the Latvian track.
Malta’s Shannon Galea finished 32nd her first World Cup start in the season and first time on the tricky Latvian track.
With three races to go in the women’s skeleton World Cup season, Hannah Neise leads Janine Flock by 48 points. Kimberley Bos is third, with Freya Tarbit, and Jacqueline Pfeifer rounding out the top five.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Kimberley Bos | NED | 2 | 5.05 | 5.09 | 51.11 | 51.70 | 1:42.81 |
| 2 | Janine Flock | AUT | 7 | 5.22 | 5.21 | 51.46 | 51.51 | 1:42.97 |
| 3 | Kim Meylemans | BEL | 3 | 5.05 | 5.03 | 51.53 | 51.60 | 1:43.13 |
| 4 | Hannah Neise | GER | 9 | 5.23 | 5.23 | 51.41 | 51.77 | 1:43.18 |
| 5 | Amelia Coltman | GBR | 20 | 5.18 | 5.16 | 51.74 | 51.50 | 1:43.24 |
| 6 | Susanne Kreher | GER | 14 | 5.19 | 5.10 | 51.80 | 51.64 | 1:43.44 |
| 7 | Mystique Ro | USA | 12 | 4.95 | 4.95 | 51.76 | 51.80 | 1:43.56 |
| 8 | Freya Tarbit | GBR | 5 | 5.13 | 5.15 | 51.70 | 51.88 | 1:43.58 |
| 9 | Tabitha Stoecker | GBR | 1 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 52.17 | 51.42 | 1:43.59 |
| 10 | Anna Fernstädt | CZE | 16 | 5.27 | 5.29 | 51.99 | 51.63 | 1:43.62 |
| 11 | Jacqueline Pfeifer | GER | 6 | 5.31 | 5.26 | 51.99 | 51.66 | 1:43.65 |
| 12 | Jane Channell | CAN | 17 | 5.02 | 5.02 | 51.79 | 51.93 | 1:43.72 |
| 13 | Corinna Leipold | GER | 8 | 5.22 | 5.20 | 51.99 | 51.87 | 1:43.86 |
| 14 | Nicole Silveira | BRA | 4 | 5.16 | 5.17 | 51.71 | 52.17 | 1:43.88 |
| 15 | Yuxi Li | CHN | 24 | 5.11 | 5.12 | 52.12 | 52.00 | 1:44.12 |
| 16 | Katie Uhlaender | USA | 11 | 5.25 | 5.25 | 52.66 | 52.15 | 1:44.81 |
| 16 | Dan Zhao | CHN | 10 | 5.18 | 5.18 | 52.33 | 52.48 | 1:44.81 |
| 18 | Valentina Margaglio | ITA | 13 | 4.96 | 4.94 | 52.68 | 52.26 | 1:44.94 |
| 19 | Darta Zunte | EST | 31 | 5.16 | 5.18 | 52.59 | 52.37 | 1:44.96 |
| 20 | Julia Simmchen | SUI | 28 | 5.47 | 5.42 | 52.65 | 52.71 | 1:45.36 |
| 21 | Alessia Crippa | ITA | 19 | 5.08 | 5.06 | 52.77 | 52.66 | 1:45.43 |
| 22 | Sara Schmied | SUI | 29 | 5.17 | 5.18 | 52.80 | 52.82 | 1:45.62 |
| 22 | Kelly Curtis | USA | 33 | 5.17 | 5.19 | 52.58 | 53.04 | 1:45.62 |
| 24 | Alessandra Fumagalli | ITA | 23 | 5.11 | 5.11 | 52.87 | 52.77 | 1:45.64 |
| 25 | Kellie Delka | PUR | 30 | 5.43 | 5.46 | 52.76 | 52.97 | 1:45.73 |
| 26 | Siji Song | CHN | 27 | 5.38 | 53.05 | |||
| 27 | Sara Roderick | USA | 18 | 5.04 | 53.07 | |||
| 28 | Anna Saulite | AUT | 25 | 5.48 | 53.25 | |||
| 29 | Grace Dafoe | CAN | 21 | 5.39 | 53.28 | |||
| 30 | Aline Pelckmans | BEL | 32 | 5.44 | 53.34 | |||
| 31 | Ana Torres Quevedo | ESP | 26 | 5.75 | 55.21 | |||
| 32 | Shannon Galea | MLT | 34 | 5.92 | 56.14 | |||
| 33 | Yuxin Liang | CHN | 22 | 5.18 | 68.08 | |||
| DNS | Marta Andzane | LAT | 15 | DNS |