Esther Bottomley has come out cranking in the Pontresina International Night Sprint, qualifying third in a world class field with Australia's best ever FIS points for cross country skiing.

On a fast 800m loop, Bottomley was just 0.6 of a second behind the fastest qualifier, Beckie Scott of Canada, with Claudia Kuenzel of Germany second and the top 5 rounded out by Manuela Henkel of Germany and Sara Renner of Canada.

In the quarter final, the Australian won the start and held off all but Viola Bauer to grab a place in the semi-finals. A bad start in the semi-final meant she was relegated to the B final, and by that time, the tank was about empty and she ended up fourth, and eighth overall.

With the top German and Canadian sprinters in the top 5 this give Esther FIS points of 27; the previous best Australian points were 32 from Anthony Evans in World Cup in 1998.

Scott went on to win the event from Kuenzel.

Nick Grimmer and Andrew Mock were the best of the Australian men, in 24th and 25th place, around 7.5 seconds behind Andrew Newell of the USA.