Aussie winter stars shine as Walker leads with World Cup gold

Australia’s winter sports activities stars are dominating, led by bobsleigh ace Bree Walker, who delivered a commanding efficiency in Lillehammer, Norway, to triumph on the monobob World Cup occasion.

Walker clocked the quickest instances in each heats in a single day, completely dominating the sphere.

The win marks Walker’s fourth profession World Cup victory. More impressively, it cements her exceptional report on the historic 1994 Lillehammer Olympic monitor, the place she now boasts three consecutive World Cup race victories.

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The 33-year-old logged her greatest push begins of the season, rating third in each heats.

From there, she set the tempo, blitzing the monitor with a primary run of 53.86 seconds and following up with a 54.02-second run.

This translated right into a mixed time of 1:47.88 for the general victory.

Austria’s Katrin Beierl grabbed second place with a mixed time of 1:48.32, whereas Germany’s Laura Nolte rounded out the rostrum, taking third with a remaining time of 1:48.36.

Speaking afterwards, Walker expressed confidence in her efficiency, whereas additionally highlighting her particular connection to the Lillehammer monitor.

“It was a great race today, I was really happy with both runs and both pushes, it was probably one of the best races I’ve done,” she mentioned.

“I really enjoy Lillehammer, we spend a lot of time here in pre-season, so it feels like coming home each time we come back.

I enjoy the little nuances of the track and being able to put that all together in a run. Often, I know I have done a fast run before I’ve even crossed the line if I’ve been able to execute certain parts of the track.

Walker currently sits second in the overall World Cup standings following the third event of the 2025/2026 season, trailing only Nolte by 18 points.

“The competitors is so robust, we’ll be leaping round all yr within the rankings,” Walker said.

“We will simply preserve taking issues race by race.”

Walker will also contest the two-woman bobsleigh event in Lillehammer.

Meanwhile, Team Australia opened the snowboard cross World Cup season strongly, delivering powerful performances in Cervinia, Italy.

Both hailing from Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains, Josie Baff and Adam Lambert soared onto the podium, each claiming a bronze medal.

With their results, Baff continues to stack up the hardware, securing her 15th career World Cup podium, while Lambert proved his consistency by locking down his seventh.

Setting herself up by qualifying second, Baff immediately asserted her dominance, winning her quarter-final heat before powering through a semi-final thriller.

In the tense semi final, Baff managed to just edge out Austria’s Pia Zerkhold in a photo finish, securing her ticket to the big final.

In a nail-biting medal battle, victory ultimately went to France’s Lea Casta. Italy’s Michela Moioli snatched second place, trailing by a razor-thin 0.07 seconds, while Baff had to settle for a hard-fought third place, just 0.14 seconds shy of gold.

“I like the primary race of the season, I’m desirous to get again racing, and I wish to beat the entire ladies, so I feel that is a giant motivating issue for me,” Baff said afterwards.

“I’ve been attempting to work on qualifying greater, and I used to be actually completely happy to return out with second yesterday, and that meant I had my alternative of gate all day in finals.

“My plan was to win the start section, but in the final I made a mistake in turn one, and that cost me the lead, then I adapted pretty quickly and tried to get in the draft, and came down to all four us coming out of the second last turn so it was pretty wild and a good fight to the finish.”

Lambert additionally dominated early, successful each single one among his heats.

The 28-year-old then executed a masterclass within the semi remaining, the place he pulled off an excellent late move, utilizing his robust drafting approach to energy himself from third place proper into first.

In the boys’s massive remaining, Lambert battled arduous, in the end crossing the road in third place, simply behind French brothers Jonas and Aidan Chollet.

“Today was awesome, yesterday in qualifying the early runners can get a slower course, and I made a mistake, so to be able to get the second run down (in 23rd), and then come out and prove to everyone that I was better than my number predicted, it’s awesome, I love it,” he mentioned.

“We were discussing last night in race strategy, there was going to be a lot of draft out of turn five, and plenty of opportunities to gain speed, but overall it was pretty much decided at the finish line.”

The remainder of the Australian contingent additionally put up a robust battle in Cervinia.

Mia Clift and Cam Bolton each made it via to the quarter-finals, in the end ending ninth and 14th respectively.

Other Aussies simply lacking out on the finals included Amber Essex (twenty fourth), James Johnstone (forty seventh), Declan Dent (forty eighth), and Cameron Turner (52nd), whereas Abbey Wilson recorded a DNF within the second qualifying run.

Over on the snowboard massive air World Cup in Colorado, 16-year-old Ally Hickman claimed her very first FIS World Cup medal after selecting up bronze.

On Saturday, Melbourne teenager Indra Brown made historical past on the freeski halfpipe World Cup in China, turning into the youngest Australian ever to assert a FIS World Cup medal in any winter sport.

All of those athletes are setting their sights on the last word aim: the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics within the Italian Alps this February.