Emma Lincoln-Smith has continued her march towards the top echelon of the skeleton World Cup, finishing in seventh place in Lake Placid, New York, to post her second personal best result of the season.

The 22-year old Sydney slider covered the two runs in a time of one minute 53.89 seconds, 1.29 seconds behind race winner Katie Uhlaender of the United States.
Lincoln-Smith’s Olympic Winter Institute team-mate Melissa Hoar was in 13th place, 2.21 seconds off the lead, while the most accomplished of the Australian sliders, Michelle Steele, had an indifferent day, ping-ponged off the wall to finish in 18th place in her opening run.

A silver medallist on World Cup last season, Steele recovered somewhat with a 13th on her second run, but could only claw back two places, finishing 16th overall and 2.58 seconds behind the leader.

Olympic Winter Institute skeleton coach Terry Holland was pleased with the Lincoln-Smith’s result.

“This was one of the tracks that we hadn’t trained on before the season, so we were relying on memory of it from last season,” Holland said.

“Curve 14 is a key part of the track and Emma nailed it both times.”

“She really stepped up to the plate today.” 

“Last season she was putting in good first runs and not so good second runs, but this season she has really matured as a fighter, and learnt to handle the pressure.”

“It was a very strong field today, and she was just six one hundredths of a second off fifth place.”

“Melissa has also got her basics back and is steadily improving. She missed this track last year after she had her hip surgery, so she was relying on memory from two years ago.”

“And Michelle can take positives away. This is the world championship track for next year, so she has gained some valuable experience for that.”

Just four hundredths of a second separated the leading three sliders, Canadian Michelle Kelly taking silver, .02 seconds behind Uhlaender, while Kelly’s compatriot Carla Pavan was another .02 further back.

Lincoln-Smith, who had opened the season with a then personal best ninth placing in Calgary, now sits in eighth place on the World Cup standings, one spot behind Steele.

Kelly leads the World Cup title race on 660 points from Uhlaender on 603.

Steele is on 440 points, Lincoln-Smith on 432 and Hoar in 16th place on 336.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Australian Skeleton Development Team slider Lucy Chaffer finished in 16th place in an Intercontinental Cup event in Winterberg, Austria.