Australia remains on track to qualify two women skeleton athletes for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, with results that maintain our ranking of number five in the world.

Emma Lincoln-Smith recorded her third top-ten result, finishing in eighth place in a time of 1 minute, 59.01 seconds at the third FIBT World Cup in Cesana, Italy, on 5 December.

The top two ranked skeleton nations after the World Cup will qualify three athletes for the Winter Olympics. Nations ranked three to six will qualify two athletes and nations in the top eight will qualify at least one.

Other Australian skeleton athletes have been performing well in the second tier Intercontinental Cup series in Europe, with Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder Melissa Hoar winning two events and finishing second in another. Institute team-mate Lucy Chaffer has also produced three top-five results.