Australian Michelle Steele finished 13th in the women’s skeleton at Cesana Pariol. Steele clocked a combined time of 2:03.09 over her two runs, some 3.64 seconds behind winner Maya Pedersen of Switzerland.

Steele sat 12th after the first run, when she posted a time of 1:01.26.

The 19-year-old produced the sixth fastest start split in the first heat and was well situated in 7th place at the second intermediate split, but slowed toward the finish.

Steele again started well in the second heat, but again slowed toward the end. She completed the second run in 1:02.21.

Despite not featuring in the medals, Steele was happy with her overall efforts.

“I’m happy with it,” she said. “The experience of being here tonight, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Steele felt there were elements of her runs that could have been better.

“It was hard to go from three days of training and six runs to really get runs nailed down. So there were things tonight we were still playing around with and trying to fix,” she said.

“Between runs (coach) Terry (Holland) gave me things to fix so it’s been really tough but I’m happy with it.”

Despite being among the leaders with her start times, Steele expressed disappointment in her start in the opening heat.

“My second start I was happy with, but my first start, there were things I could have fixed.”

Steele is a former sprinter who once dreamed of competing at the Summer Games before switching to skeleton.

She is Australia’s first skeleton athlete in Winter Olympic history.

Pedersen took the gold with a combined time of 1:59.83, ahead of Britain’s Shelley Rudman, who posted a time of 2:01.06. Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards took the bronze in a time of 2:01.41.

Kevin Diggerson / AOC