New Zealand skeleton racers Ben Sandford and Katharine Eustace achieved their best results at the world cup skeleton racing competition at St Moritz, Switzerland, on Sunday and showed they can foot it with the world's best.
Sandford achieved New Zealand's first top-three placing in world cup competition, finishing third in the men's race behind Martins Dukurs, of Latvia, and Frank Rommel, of Germany.
Last year's Vancouver Olympic men's gold medallist, Jon Montgomery (Canada), was eighth.
Eustace, a Wanaka phsyiotherapist, was sixth in the women's race, which was won by Shelley Rudman, of the United Kingdom.
Mellisa Hollingworth, of Canada, and Anja Huber, of Germany, were second and third.
Last year's Vancouver Olympic women's gold medallist, Britain's Amy Williams, was 10th.
The New Zealanders' results were the highest world cup results achieved by athletes from this country.
Sandford has represented New Zealand at two Winter Olympics since he started the sport in 2002.
He said in an email to the Otago Daily Times on Sunday he was "over the moon".
"It feels great to finally get on the podium and it's especially nice to have this result after the injury problems I've had."
Eustace said winning the Europa Cup on the same track a week before the world cup had given her a "bit more confidence that I could race competitively with the top girls in the world".
"However, training hadn't been going well throughout the week, but I just kept focusing on sliding the right lines and making them nice and smooth and on race day I just thought to myself, `I have nothing to lose, just have a good time.' "I think this helped me relax," she said.
The New Zealand team races this week in Cesana, Italy in the last world cup race before the world championships take place in Koenigssee, Germany from February 25 to 27.
