'A bit heartbroken': Bobsled Bree lifts lid on 'wild' runs, bent axle that cost her a medal
LIVIGNO: Australian bobsleigh star Bree Walker has finished out of the medals in the women's monobob, with 41-year-old American Elana Meyers Taylor springing an upset to win her first gold medal at her fifth Olympic Games.
Meyers Taylor is bobsleigh royalty and started the competition at Milano Cortina 2026 with two Olympic silvers and three bronze medals but she was only considered an outside chance to complete the set. She did it with two blistering runs on day two of competition, equalling a track record with 59.08 in her third run then backing it up with a 59.51 to put extreme pressure on red hot favourite German Laura Nolte, who was last to go.
Nolte started her final run with a .15 second gap to Meyers Taylor, but a mistake on one of the first turns robbed her of speed and she was unable to make it up in the bottom section of the course, her 59.70 relegating her to the silver medal, .04 of a second behind the American veteran.
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Rounding out the podium was another American in her forties, with Kaillie Armbruster Humphries clinching bronze, just .08 behind the German.
A medal fancy before the Milano Cortina competition began, Walker gave a significantly improved performance on the second day of competition but was unable to move up the standings and finished in eighth place, 1.56 seconds behind Meyers Taylor.
The killer for Walker was her very first run of the competition, a 1:00.19 that left her in 11th spot and effectively ended her hopes of gold with three runs still remaining. She also failed to break the one-minute mark in her second run, while the athletes sitting in the top four after day one all broke the minute mark in both their runs.
Her times of 59.60 and 59.69 on day two gave her a slim hope of a medal with seven competitors still to complete their fourth runs, but it soon became clear that her poor start to the competition would condemn her to finish off the podium.
Speaking after the medals had been decided, Walker admitted she was "heartbroken".
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Bree Walker looks on after competing in the women's monobob during a disappointing Milano Cortina campaign. Getty
"I'm obviously a bit heartbroken from the race I've had here," she said.
"If I'm being honest I've struggled here the whole time. Training was really tough and I had some really wild runs, to the point where I actually bent my axle and we had to fix that a few days before the race, so that shook me a little bit but, you know what, I wanted to go out there and just give it a good hard crack.
"It's always what I wanted to do throughout my whole career, so yeah, I'm really proud to have stood to the line and just tried my very best."
Walker said she hoped to salvage something from her campaign in the two-woman bobsleigh, which starts on Saturday. Walker will partner with Kiara Reddingius in one Australian sled, while Sarah Blizzard pairs with Desi Johnson in the other.
Hours before Walker's final two runs in the monobob, the Olympic campaign of short track speed skating medal hope Brendan Corey came to a close, with the Canadian born Aussie eliminated in the heats of the 500m event, his least preferred distance.
His best result of the Games was a semi-final appearance in the 1500m event but he was unable to make it through to the medal race after finishing fifth.
"I mean, I didn't have any super results, but that's alright. I gave it my all in the races and now I need to focus for the world championships in about three weeks," Corey told Nine's Christine Ahern.
He said that his only hope of progressing out of the heats in the super fast 500m event was to go out hard from the starting line and try to use his endurance ability to hang on. He got to the front of the pack but got burned on the first corner.
"Yeah, I surprised myself there. I gave it everything I had off the start. It was a good straight, and then on the corner a little bump and then at those speeds it's so hard to close the gap," he said.
