Her local athletics club put on a ‘bring a friend’ training session and Bree quickly fell in love with sprinting. As a junior she excelled in 400m running and 100m hurdles, later combining her two passions to become a competitive 400m hurdler in senior events. 

Following Bree’s high school graduation, she received a full athletics scholarship to a college in United States. Despite intending to finish her degree, Bree returned to Australia one year after moving to the USA. 

“The college system is very different to how we train in Australia, so I just got really slow and my performance was suffering,” Bree said.

“Once I returned home I swapped coaches and started training under Cathy Freeman’s old coach. He was bringing me back up to my former fitness, but I remember him suggesting there might be another sport better suited to my strengths.”

At the time, Bree was set on 400m hurdles and believed she could one day represent Australia at the Olympic Games. However once Rio 2016 came around, Bree decided to take on her coach's advice and see what other sports were out there.

“I had to ask myself the big questions. ‘Am I going to achieve what I want to achieve in this sport?’ and ‘will I achieve my dream of representing Australia at the Olympic level?’

“The answer was no. I was suffering from a bunch of injuries from America, my fitness was behind and I could see the next generation of athletes coming through. So I decided maybe my talents lay elsewhere.”

The 'Breeinvention' was on. While she first considered transitioning to AFL or rugby, she eventually decided to try her hand at Bobsled after being inspired by 2014 Winter Olympian Jana Pittman.

“Bobsled was always in the back of my mind. I thought maybe I would do it after my Athletics career. When I saw Jana Pittman at the 2014 Winter Olympics, I was like ‘well if she has gone and done it then I am sure another 400m hurdler can do it.’

“I searched Bobsled Australia online and discovered they did not have a women's team at the time, but they were revamping for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

“So I introduced myself via email and they invited me to their talent identification camp. Once I was at the camp I achieved the physical testing standards and the rest is history.”

When asked about the transition from Athletics to Bobsled, Bree said it was fairly easy due to the similarities in training off the ice. However, it’s letting go of your past which is the toughest part about changing sports at the elite level.

“Training for sprinting is very similar to the training for Bobsled. However, I feel like I was mentally a hybrid athlete for two or so years before I actually became a bobsled athlete.

“To fully embrace my new athletic life I had to let my past athletics career go, which was really hard for me.

“It wasn’t until I moved to Germany and started training with my current push coach that I realised I was still trying to be a 400m athlete. He said to me ‘you have so much potential to be a great bobsled athlete, but you need to make the commitment to completely transform your training.’

“I now train full-time with a bobsled coach, I train with other bobsled athletes and that has really helped me to completely transform into the bobsled athlete I am today.”

Bree’s team missed out on qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but the 29-year-old now has her sights set on Beijing 2022 where she is set to compete in both the two-woman bobsled and monobob events.

For the past two years Bree has based herself out of Germany to train alongside her coach and to get the best preparation possible leading into Beijing.

Bree Walker arrives in Beijing having taken the Monobob circuit by storm, claiming eight world series podiums over the last two seasons.

With a gold, three silvers and a bronze out of just seven monobob races she competed in this season, Bree will enter the Games ranked fifth in the world.

She also earned Australia's best ever result in the two-woman bobsleigh, finishing seventh with brakewoman Kiara Reddingius as one of two top-10 finishes in the event this season, and sits ninth in the combined monobob-two-woman pilot rankings.

As for the Olympic Games, the bobsled pilot said she is most looking forward to representing her country on the sport’s biggest stage and having the chance to achieve her dreams of Olympic success.

“I went to the Pyeongchang Olympics as a spectator, so I got to see everything from the outside. This time I am very much looking forward to experiencing it from within. I am so excited to be a competitor, to be on the start line representing my country. It has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember.

“Honestly anything is possible at the Olympics. Getting a podium is the ultimate goal and I definitely think we have the potential to do that. We have the right equipment, we have the right coach, we have the right mentality and physical background... everything is there.

“It’s just about putting all the pieces of the puzzle together on the day.”

Taylah O’Neill