First World Cup skeleton win of the season for Mirela Rahneva

Mirela Rahneva slid to women’s skeleton gold at the IBSF World Cup in Sigulda, Latvia on Friday.

The 35-year-old Canadian recorded a two-run total time of 1:43.10, giving her the victory by nearly a third of a second (0.28) over Belgium’s Kim Meylemans. Germany’s Hannah Neise rounded out the podium, just 0.03 back of Meylemans, who is second in the overall World Cup standings.

“I needed a little win,” said Rahneva. “It is a lot of pressure sitting in the top-three at the top of the track after the first run. It is never comfortable. You are always thinking don’t mess it up, just stay here. It is definitely a lot of work to not think about the result but think about the process.”

Another Canadian, 19-year-old Hallie Clarke, finished eighth in 1:43.85, following up her season-best seventh-place performance last week in Lillehammer.

This is Rahneva’s first victory of the season, but the fifth time in her career she has stood atop a World Cup podium. She was last victorious in December 2022 in Park City, Utah. The two-time Olympian opened this season with a third-place finish in Yanqing, China in November, but the closest she had come to the podium since then was a fifth-place finish in Innsbruck in mid December. She is currently eighth in the overall World Cup standings.

“I’m really proud of pursuing something that I knew I was capable of doing,” said Rahneva. “Sometimes you can get in your head a bit, but it is important to drown those thoughts and get grounded. I am very happy I was able to do that today.”

Earlier on Friday, Cynthia Appiah and Leah Walkeden placed seventh in the two-woman bobsleigh. Appiah will race again on Saturday in the women’s monobob before another two-woman race on Sunday.