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Riley Tejcek in one of the falls, which all ended lightly

Photo: Annegret Hilse / REUTERS

US pilot Riley Tejcek set a dubious record at the World Bobsleigh Championships.

In the two-man bobsleigh, the 27-year-old fell in all four runs in Winterberg - and still didn't come last in the race.

»It's so difficult here.

But I'm racing with the best in the world, that makes me proud," she said.

"But my heart is broken as an athlete because I didn't make it down," she added.

In the first two runs on Friday, Tejcek lay on his side at the end of the finish curve with pusher Jasmine Jones.

Since the sled still made it to the finish, she was also allowed to take part in the final two runs on Saturday.

Then she had pusher Jestena Mattson in the bobsleigh.

And in the third run, her sled also tipped over on the exit shortly before the finish.

And since the subsequent starters were all worse in terms of time, Tecjek still qualified for the final run as 20th out of a total of 24 sleds.

She fell there too, this time before the finish curve.

Apart from a few injuries and abrasions, all of the falls were minor.

German triple victory

Tejcek, who is a captain in the Marine Corps, competed in her first race in January 2021 in Park City at the North American Cup.

She made her World Cup debut in November 2022.

Things went much better for the German team: Lisa Buckwitz from BRC Thuringia won her first World Championship gold as a pilot.

The former pusher, who surprisingly won Olympic gold with Mariama Jamanka in Pyeongchang in 2018, beat Laura Nolte with Vanessa Mark from Eintracht Frankfurt by five hundredths of a second.

The two-man Olympic champion from Beijing, who rode with Deborah Levi from Potsdam, missed her first World Cup double after her victory in the monobob.

Third place went to defending champion Kim Kalicki from TuS Eintracht Wiesbaden with her Winterberger pusher Leonie Fiebig.

“All three did a great race and built up pressure,” said national coach René Spies on ZDF: “Lisa and Vanessa are the deserved winners.

For us it's a great thing overall with the three of them," he said.

kjo/dpa