Bree Walker slides to silver in World Cup monobob

Bree Walker, Australia's ever-consistent world-class sledder, has enjoyed her best performance of the European winter season, rocketing to a silver medal in the iconic World Cup monobob event at St Moritz.

On her second run on Friday, the brilliant Walker broke the track record on the celebrated hand-cut ice chute at the Swiss resort, her time of 1 minute 10.48 seconds putting her in the gold medal position with one athlete to come down.

But that athlete, celebrated veteran US pilot Elana Meyers Taylor, then held her nerve to lower the new record again (1:10.32) with the last run of the day to take her first ever monobob victory after 19 previous World Cup two-woman bob wins.

Bree Walker (left) on the podium with her two US rivals, winner Elana Meyers Taylor (centre) and Kaysha Love (right).

The 40-year-old American's combined time for her two runs (2:21.52) was 0.24 seconds faster than Walker's (2:21.76), with another US sledder Kaysha Love third in 2:22.07.

Walker's performance gave her a third medal of the season after two bronze and the 10th podium place in all in a career that appears to be blooming at the age of 32, with the Milan and Cortina Olympics looming for 2026.

It also allowed her to jump up one place to second in the overall monobob World Cup standings.

"Super happy with my runs today, it's really come along the last few weeks" said the 32-year-old Queenslander, who was a track hurdler before turning to the ice.

"This track has been a bit of a challenge for me in the past, but my coach Pierre Lueders has taught me all his ways over the past few years, and I am just so stoked with the result today.

"The goal was to drive the best that I can, and it's paid off, so I am really happy with how I executed."

Walker will get another chance on the track 24 hours later on Saturday when she hopes to make up more ground on Germany's overall World Cup leader Lisa Buckwitz, who had a rare off-day in Friday's race with her fourth-place finish.

After five of the eight-race season's series, Walker is now on 986 points, with Buckwitz, who missed the podium for the first time this season after recently winning three consecutive races, on 1077.

"Plan for tomorrow is to go again and do the same, tidy up a few little things that I noticed today, and then gear up for the two-woman bob with my brakewoman Kiara Reddingius on Sunday," said Walker.

The other Australian in action on Friday, Sarah Blizzard, finished 24th.