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If she takes the fourth gold (with a luckless silver to Scotty James from the half-pipe), it will confirm these Winter Olympics as an outlandish success for a nation with small pockets of patchy snow.
Bree Walker trains at the sliding track in Cortina ahead of the women’s monobob.Credit: AP
Walker does not present as one who fears the pressure of having – at least a portion – of a nation on her back as she pushes the sled downhill on Sunday and Monday at terrifying speed.
She likes pressure. It – and her powerful torso and legs – drives her. She views pressure as a tool for performance, not a burden.
“I wanted to be one of the best,” Walker told this masthead, saying this was her rationale for leaving athletics (400 metres hurdles), which she could not reach the apex of, and taking up the bobsleigh a decade ago.
“I wanted to be attacking for the podium. What comes with that is the pressure. I don’t use it as a negative thing. I use it as a positive thing…I use it (with) all my positive energy and I put it towards my races.”
Walker, who relishes the tactical part of the bobsleigh, has made late adjustments to her race plan, as she revealed on Friday in what will be her final session before she races in the heats of the monobob – the one woman event – on Sunday morning (local time).
“We went back, we looked at the plan again, and we decided to make a few changes,” she said afterwards. “So we’re on to plan C now. C for Cortina.”
Bree Walker in the monobob at a World Cup event in Austria in November.Credit: AP
The change of plans had been compelled by the condition of the ice, which had been cut up for the luge. “So then that’s obviously changes how we need to drive slightly,” Walker said. “As a bobsled pilot, you have to be very adaptable.
“It (the track) means I have to adapt my driving style slightly. I still love this track.”
Walker entered this Olympics confident of her prospects in the monobob. Her form was better than impeccable, and she professed a liking for the Cortina track that she and her coach felt suited her powerful, fast-starting style.
Her form line was without blemish: three victories out of the past five World Cup events, which pit the Olympian elites, and an overall finish of second in the World Cup, beaten relatively narrowly by German Laura Nolte.
Walker had been buoyant about the Olympics just before she went into full training at the Cortina venue. “I’m really happy with how the season has gone so far. So feeling quite confident and comfortable going into the Games,” she told this masthead.
Walker wants the gold, naturally. “Of course every athlete is going for gold. I certainly am.” But she says any medal would be a positive outcome.
“My coach always says any day you’re on the podium is a good day. So for me, just getting to the podium is going to be a huge achievement.”
Her obvious competition is the German who pipped her over the course of the World Cup season, Nolte. Just behind Walker was American Kaillie Humphries, the incumbent gold medallist from Beijing 2022.
“You can’t count anybody out, but Laura has performed well this season. She is my main rival. But I’m just going to go out there and do my thing, and execute what I know.”
Race on her own terms. “You do that and results come.”
As a fugitive from the 400 metres hurdles, Walker reckoned her shorter, stockier and powerful physique suited her to the bob sleigh and especially the explosive starts.
But in her mind, her heritage in the brutally taxing 400-metre hurdles – an event she reckoned didn’t suit her physical composition – built what she considered her most critical quality for the event in which she’s chasing Olympic gold now.
“My grit.”
The Winter Olympic Games is broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
