From Lillehammer, NOR
(February 16, 2025) – Laura Nolte has been the class of the two-woman bobsled field all season, where she amassed four golds and two silvers prior to the season finale in Lillehammer. So it just made sense that to end the World Cup season, she’d win one more time.
Nolte and Deborah Levi had the quick start in both heats, and Nolte the quick drive both times on her way to a .2 second victory over teammates Lisa Buckwitz and Neele Schuten.
It was close after the first heat, however. Nolte only held a .02 second advantage over her teammate after her first run. But in the second heat Buckwitz’s run was just a little bumpier, and while it was more than enough to take silver, it left the door wide open for Nolte, who took gold handily.
Nolte finished out the seven race season with five wins, with the final one giving her 20 in her two-woman World Cup career. Buckwitz’s silver was her sixth medal in seven races on the season.
The battle for bronze was won out by Canada’s Melissa Lotholz and Skylar Sieben. The duo had a pair of top five starts, and while Lotholz’s second slide came back to those outside of the top three, she had just enough in the bank to win bronze by .02 for her first career World Cup medal as a pilot.
Lotholz and Sieben’s bronze came at the expense of both Austria and Germany. Kim Kalicki and Vanessa Mark slid from seventh in the first heat up to fourth, in a tie with Austria’s Kati Beierl and Nicola Pichler, which tied a season-best for Beierl.
Switzerland’s Melanie Hasler and Muswama Kambundji slid to sixth place with the third quickest start in each heat.
Just out of the top six were Adele Nicoll and Ashleigh Nelson, who had the fourth quickest slide in the second heat on their way to seventh.
Canada’s Cynthia Appiah couldn’t match her previous day’s monobob results. She slid to 11th with Morgan Ramsay, while Erica Voss and Charlotte Ross were 15th in Voss’s second race on the World Cup.
Nolte had about clinched the World Cup title coming into the weekend, but gold solidified that title, her third straight. Kim Kalicki’s second heat rally kept her second overall, just ten points ahead of Lisa Buckwitz who rounded out the German season podium sweep. Melanie Hasler finished the year in fourth, and Kati Beierl fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Nolte / Levi | GER | 13 | 5.34 | 5.36 | 51.73 | 52.01 | 1:43.74 |
| 2 | Buckwitz / Schuten | GER | 5 | 5.36 | 5.36 | 51.75 | 52.19 | 1:43.94 |
| 3 | Lotholz / Sieben | CAN | 6 | 5.46 | 5.50 | 52.08 | 52.62 | 1:44.70 |
| 4 | Kalicki / Mark | GER | 10 | 5.53 | 5.57 | 52.26 | 52.46 | 1:44.72 |
| 4 | Beierl / Pichler | AUT | 7 | 5.44 | 5.47 | 52.12 | 52.60 | 1:44.72 |
| 6 | Hasler / Kambundji | SUI | 8 | 5.40 | 5.43 | 52.21 | 52.54 | 1:44.75 |
| 7 | Nicoll / Nelson | GR | 1 | 5.54 | 5.52 | 52.25 | 52.53 | 1:44.78 |
| 8 | Boch / Senechal | FRA | 4 | 5.54 | 5.55 | 52.33 | 52.82 | 1:45.15 |
| 9 | Grecu / Vlad | ROU | 11 | 5.53 | 5.56 | 52.45 | 52.84 | 1:45.29 |
| 10 | Cernanska / Mokrasova | SVK | 3 | 5.67 | 5.69 | 52.40 | 52.89 | 1:45.29 |
| 11 | Appiah / Ramsay | CAN | 9 | 5.51 | 5.54 | 52.47 | 52.87 | 1:45.34 |
| 12 | van Petegem / van Driessche | BEL | 12 | 5.69 | 5.71 | 52.74 | 53.02 | 1:45.76 |
| 13 | Blizzard / Werner | AUS | 14 | 5.68 | 5.69 | 52.85 | 53.03 | 1:45.88 |
| 14 | Ying / Lv | CHN | 2 | 5.69 | 5.73 | 52.86 | 53.22 | 1:46.08 |
| 15 | Voss / Ross | CAN | 15 | 5.55 | 5.57 | 52.99 | 53.38 | 1:46.37 |