By Mikayla van Loon
Olympian Bree Walker is back on home soil for the next two months after making an impressive debut in the women’s bobsleigh.
Having finished up her Olympic campaign just over a week ago, Bree said she’s still riding the wave of all the emotions from her experience.
“It goes up and down like you come home and when you see everyone, you get really excited that you’re seeing everyone but you’re obviously exhausted from the whole experience and so you come back and just crash,” she said.
“It’s been great being back here and seeing everybody, so I’m very grateful.”
Touching down in Australia for the first time in two years, Bree has been in the Yarra Ranges catching up with family and friends but plans to head up to Cairns to see her parents.
Bree will take a physical break now to help repair a bulging disk she was battling in Beijing but will get back into weight training over the summer period when she heads back to Germany at the end of April.
While in Australia she plans to raise some support financially through sponsors and institutes and lift the profile of bobsleigh in Australia now that she has created an excitement for the sport.
In particular, Bree would love to see local businesses or people get on board to support her because she said the Mount Evelyn and Lilydale community means so much to her that she would love to represent it in a small way.
“If I’m going to go on bigger and better next time around, I have to earn some money for it and I need some support for it because I can’t do it like I did for the last four years,” Bree said.
“We’re not going to achieve anything better than fifth if I don’t have the support and backing and the money behind me.”
Reflecting on her first ever Olympics, Bree said she was so grateful for the opportunity and the effort organisers went through to make it feel as normal as possible given the Covid-19 restrictions.
“Honestly, we didn’t really know what to expect with the whole Covid Olympics but they made it so enjoyable for us, the people were very friendly.
“Our Australian volunteers and workers at the association just did so much for us and went absolutely overboard with support and it was fantastic. It just really made our experience great.”
Taking on one of the most challenging bobsleigh tracks and having only spent three weeks practicing on it in October last year, Bree said the dragon shaped Yanqing track was a difficult one.
“It was unforgiving. It was really enjoyable and I think I got a good feel for it in the end but if you made one small mistake, you paid for it all the way down,” she said.
“So I really enjoyed it and I found it a challenge but I love the challenge.”
Finishing up fifth in the monobob and sixteenth in the two-woman bobsleigh, Bree said she now has a goal to improve at the next Olympic Games.
“I’m happy, I’m content, I’m not satisfied. I would have loved to walk away with a medal and I think it would have been possible if I didn’t mess up my first run in the monobob
“But at the end of the day, I have to accept what it was. I tried my best and that’s my baseline and if fifth is my baseline, then at the next Olympics I now just work towards being able to achieve a medal there.”
