Australia's top sledder Bree Walker has ended her World Cup monobob season in record-breaking fashion, sliding to a second-straight gold medal in the space of a week on her favourite Lillehammer track in Norway.
Walker's terrific back-to-back victory sealed the runner's up spot for her in the overall season's standings for the second year in a row and stands her in good stead going into the season-ending world championships in the US next month.
“Feels so great to secure the second place crystal globe again, a big goal was to win a crystal globe again, so really happy that my consistency throughout the year has paid off,” said Walker, who won twice and also landed a silver and two bronze in the monobob over the season.
The 32-year-old Melburnian, who had won on the same course last weekend but had to share the gold after a dead-heat with American Kaysha Love, this time made sure victory would be hers alone as she broke the track record on her first run on Saturday morning.
She powered down the 1994 Olympic track in 54.01 seconds, nine-hundredths of a second quicker than Canadian Cynthia Appiah.
Appiah continued to apply the pressure and was lying in first place with a combined time of 1min 48.66sec when Walker was the last to go on the final run.
Walker handled the pressure to clock the fourth-fastest second run in 54.56sec to pip the Canadian by 0.15sec in a combined 1:48.51, while Germany's Lisa Buckwitz sealed the overall title by finishing third, 0.01sec behind Appiah.
With the third World Cup gold of her career, Walker finished her season's campaign on 1596 points, trailing Buckwitz by 41 but winning her battle for silver against another German star Laura Nolte, whose fifth-place finish on Saturday ensured she ended in third spot overall on 1555.
“Super happy to go back-to-back here in Lillehammer” said the Queensland-based Walker.
“It’s really fun track, I enjoy driving it and so today it was about going out there an executing two clean runs and I'm stoked to come away with the win again."
Walker, whose teammate Sarah Blizzard finished 15th, will next team up with brakewoman Kiara Reddingius and pilot the two-women bob on Sunday, before turning her attention to the world championships in Lake Placid, New York, where the monobob will be held on March 8-9.
