Australia has competed at the 2024 ISU Figure Skating World Championships in Montreal, Canada, with Hektor Giotopoulos Moore and Anastasiia Golubeva competing in the pairs and Holly Harris and Jason Chan in the ice dance event.

In the pairs event, Giotopoulos Moore and Golubeva finished in tenth place, just falling short of their eighth place performance at last year's event.

In the opening short program, they scored 63.75 points to put them in eleventh place. The pair then improved in the free skate, with the ninth best score of the round with 119.36 points.

The combined total score came to 182.71 points and a final ranking of tenth.

In the ice dance event, Harris and Chan scored 71.44 in their opening rhythm dance, their highest score of the season, putting them in 16th place.

The ice dance couple then had the 19th ranked score in the free dance of 103.34 points, giving them a combined total of 174.78 points and a final ranking of 17th.

Bobsleigh pilot Bree Walker has finished the monobob season in the best possible way, recording Australia’s first ever bobsleigh World Cup gold medal in Lake Placid, USA, giving Walker her fifth World Cup medal of the season and a career best end of season ranking.

Walker started with an incredible first run, setting a new track record for Lake Placid in 59.22 seconds, which was well over a second faster than the old record.

In the final run, Walker was the final competitor of the event as the leader from the first round, and performed superbly under pressure to again record the fastest time in 59.45 seconds, to secure her first ever World Cup victory with a two-run time of 1:58.67 seconds.

American Elana Meyers Taylor on her home track finished second 0.24 seconds behind Walker, with Cynthia Appiah of Canada 0.46 seconds back in third.

“It feels amazing, I came into this week knowing that I can be competitive and to come away with a win is the best possible way I could end the monobob season, I am so happy” said the 31-year-old Olympian from Queensland.

“Heading into the second run I knew I had to execute what I did in the first run. When I crossed the line I couldn’t even see the time or know where I had finished, but I knew it was a good run and I would be in the medals, but even better that it’s the win.”

The victory also saw Walker move into second place on the final World Cup monobob standings with 1549 points, her best end of season ranking.

First on the standings was 2024 World Champion Lisa Buckwitz of Germany on 1644 points with her teammate and 2022 Olympic gold medallist Laura Nolte in third on 1547.

The final World Cup event of the season takes place in Lake Placid tomorrow, where brakewoman Kiarra Reddingius will join Walker in the two-woman event.

Lake Placid will host the 2025 Bobsleigh World Championships next year ahead of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, now less than two years away.

Three-time Olympian Alex Ferlazzo has wrapped up a highly successful career best season, with a 15th place finish at the final FIL World Cup event of the season in Sigulda, Latvia.

Competing in Sigulda for the second straight week of World Cup competition, first up for Ferlazzo was the Nation's Cup event, where he qualified for the World Cup after finishing in seventh place.

In the World Cup event, Ferlazzo had the 15th fastest run in the opening round with a time of 48.330 seconds, and then went even faster in the final run, with the seventh fastest time of the round in 47.854 seconds.

His two-run time of 1:36.184 seconds gave him a final ranking of 15th, 1.015 seconds behind event winner Kristers Aparjods of Latvia competing on his home track. 

Ferlazzo finished the season ranked a personal best 14th on the standings, the best end of year ranking by an Australian.

A number of other records were also broken over the season, including:

• Australia's best ever finish at the FIL Luge World Championships, with an almost unbelievable fifth place in Altenberg.
  
• Australia's best ever finish at a World Cup event, finishing in eighth place in last week's World Cup in Sigulda.
  

Bobsleigh pilot Bree Walker and brakewoman Kiara Reddingius have achieved the best ever result for Australia in the two-woman or two-man event at an IBSF World Championships, with a remarkable fifth place finish in Winterberg, Germany.

The performance is the second top-5 for Walker at the World Championships, after the 31 year old finished in fourth place in the monobob last weekend. The result smashes her previous best 14th place finish, in her only other two-woman World Championship start in 2020.

Walker and Reddingius put down four competitive runs over two days of racing on the Winterberg track, to finish in a total time of 3:45.43 seconds, 1.44 seconds behind the eventual winner.

It was a German clean sweep of the podium on their home track, with Team Buckwitz winning gold, ahead of Team Nolte in silver and Team Kalicki with the bronze.

"The week was really good, training went well and we changed our sled setup and it just fit perfectly", said Walker.

"After the monobob I just had to reset and go again, and I could sense that Kiara was really excited for this week, and training was going well so we took that energy into the race and I am so happy with the result here. We were really consistent in our pushing at the start, and also in my driving, so I am over the moon."

"It was a whirlwind when we first started sliding together, and we jelled really quickly. From that point on we knew we could be a good team, it was just a matter of time doing more training and racing together."

I always knew I could be competitive in the two-woman as well as the monobob, I just needed to find my girl to help me do that, and I feel Kiarra is as competitive as I am, and it's so exciting to have a teammate who believes that we can be competitive with the best in the world."

Reddingius also commented after the race.

"I am really proud of us this season, our aim was consistency and we have nailed that at nearly every single race, especially here over four heats, it shows we can stay up there with the best in the world."

"This is our first season as a full team the whole time, so we will only go up from here."

Also competing for Australia was Sarah Blizzard and Desi Johnson who finished in 21st place, in their first two-woman World Championship race together.

The final round of World Cup competition will take place in Lake Placid, NY, USA on March 22-23. Walker is currently ranked fourth on the monobob standings, and could finish as high as second with a strong performance.