Bree Walker opened her Olympic monobob campaign in style, sitting in seventh position after the first two of four runs.
With the sport making its Olympic debut, the 20 competitors took to the track in tough conditions, with dumping snow and much colder conditions than during the three days of training ensuring athletes had to adapt to the new ice conditions.
Bree started with a 1:05.55 to sit tenth after her first run, with a number of wall touches in the top section robbing her of her top speed.
As conditions toughened, Bree put down an almost identical 1:05.54 in the second run. Several of her rivals struggled to maintain their speed in the tougher conditions, and Bree jumped up three spots to sit seventh.
Bree is 1.99 seconds behind leader Kaillie Humphries of the USA and 0.77 behind current bronze positioned slider Laura Nolte of Germany.
Bree said she was happy with her improvements and is focused on putting herself in the mix in tomorrow's final runs.
"I'm not making it easy for myself that's for sure, but I'm a fighter and will keep climbing back up the tally board," Bree said.
"The track was colder today, with harder ice, but I don't think it affected our results. I need to focus on what I need to do in my process.
"I know I can continue to be consistent and clean up my runs. I was really happy with the second run in general. I need to go and replicate that tomorrow.
"I've worked really hard to be here, I'm so proud to be here [for] the first time monobob has been at the Olympics."
The 29-year-old will hit the track tomorrow at 12:30pm AEDT for her third and fourth runs, with medals decided on combined times after the fourth run.
olympics.com.au
Dominic Sullivan
With the sport making its Olympic debut, the 20 competitors took to the track in tough conditions, with dumping snow and much colder conditions than during the three days of training ensuring athletes had to adapt to the new ice conditions.
Bree started with a 1:05.55 to sit tenth after her first run, with a number of wall touches in the top section robbing her of her top speed.
As conditions toughened, Bree put down an almost identical 1:05.54 in the second run. Several of her rivals struggled to maintain their speed in the tougher conditions, and Bree jumped up three spots to sit seventh.
Bree is 1.99 seconds behind leader Kaillie Humphries of the USA and 0.77 behind current bronze positioned slider Laura Nolte of Germany.
Bree said she was happy with her improvements and is focused on putting herself in the mix in tomorrow's final runs.
"I'm not making it easy for myself that's for sure, but I'm a fighter and will keep climbing back up the tally board," Bree said.
"The track was colder today, with harder ice, but I don't think it affected our results. I need to focus on what I need to do in my process.
"I know I can continue to be consistent and clean up my runs. I was really happy with the second run in general. I need to go and replicate that tomorrow.
"I've worked really hard to be here, I'm so proud to be here [for] the first time monobob has been at the Olympics."
The 29-year-old will hit the track tomorrow at 12:30pm AEDT for her third and fourth runs, with medals decided on combined times after the fourth run.
olympics.com.au
Dominic Sullivan
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