With its historic world title, Kimberley Bos is a favorite for Olympic gold

The sled raced at a speed with which cars are allowed to drive through the built -up area through the ice channel, but Kimberley Bos let go to the ice. She could no longer suppress her joy on the track of the American Lake Placid.

Bos was the first Dutchman on Friday evening local time World Champion Skeletonthe discipline in which the athletes are on their stomachs and with their heads ahead on a sled, their chin a few centimeters above the ice while they reach speeds of well above 100 kilometers per hour.

The 31-year-old forest could not completely believe it afterwards. She spoke of « craziness » and called it a « tricky » job in Lake Placid, the town in Upstate New York where the Olympic Winter Games took place in 1932 and 1980. Her training runs in the run -up to the World Cup would have been terrible without exception. « But I made so many mistakes there that I could learn from them. And once the competition started, it clicked, « she said in front of the camera of the International Sleep Federation IBSF.

Downright dominant

Skeleton is a sport in which the most constant participant wins, and Bos showed itself the best all -rounder in its first two descents of just under a minute. With a second and third time, she ended the first day at the top of the rankings.

On the second day, Bos really showed how good she is, with a downright dominant achievement. First she set a track record in her third descent, with top speeds of almost 120 kilometers per hour. In her last descent, she only went further on the rest of the field of participants.

With a lead of 0.67 seconds on number 2, a street length in a sport that is normally decided with hundredths and tenths of a second, Bos took the gold. After she had stopped her sled, deposited her helmet and had taken off her bit, she jumped into the arms of her parents, with whom she still lived at home in recent years if she was not traveling for her sport.

One -pair in your own country

In a country where no mountain is high enough and the temperatures rarely fall enough to construct an ice rink without artificial help, forest has been a single pair all its career. For her, the challenge to pay for her sport has always been just as big as descending an ice duct as quickly as possible. At the start of her career, she worked part -time in the restaurant on Papendal and called sponsors herself for an income. Later, thanks to the Stipendium of Sportkoepel NOC-NSF and a range of small sponsors, she was able to live full-time, but it never became a fat pot.

Only since this season, thanks to the arrival of a number of new sponsors, Bos did not have to worry financially for the first time. She purchased a new sled, in her search for even more speed and even more success. The world title was the reward for her daring to experiment with that during this season.

The sleegoud is also a confirmation that forest has been one of the most constant world toppers in sport for years. She won the World Cup twice (in 2022 and 2024), became European Champion in 2022, and took a historic bronze medal during the Winter Games in Beijing.

She was also close to the world title a number of times. In 2023 she missed the gold on a hundredth of a second, last year on her 'home job' in Winterberg, Germany, where Bos has the track record, she got so upset when she did not close her helmet closure that the chance of a good performance hurried.

In 2023 she missed the gold on a hundredth of a second, last year on her 'Thuisbaan' in the German Winterberg

Olympic Ice Canal

Now that the World Cup gold is in, the Olympic title is still the only one who is missing in Bos' Price Cabinet. After the performance this weekend, Bos will be at the start in Cortina, Italy, in February next year next year during the Winter Games. If the ice channel there Now under construction At least is on time. At the end of this month the first tests with the new job, which cost 118 million euros, must take place. According to the Italian organization, that will be completely fine.

The International Olympic Committee is less comfortable with it. It ordered the Italians to draw up a plan B in case the ice ducts will not be ready on time. Where in that scenario the Olympic medals for bobsleighs, tobogganing and skeleton are distributed? On Lake Placid's track.

To share





Mail the editors