Kimberley Bos exclusive: World Cup and European champion, Olympic gold-medal favourite, and baker extraordinaire

Kimberley Bos is a world-class skeleton athlete - but she also happens to be a seasoned baker thanks to the sport.

For Bos, the relationship between ice and flour isn't as odd as it sounds.

The 28-year-old Dutch skeleton athlete started baking a cake early in her career following a good performance on the track, and over the course of the past season, Bos has had the chance to enjoy a lot of cake.

On 14 January 2022, Bos wrote her name into the history books after becoming the Netherlands' first overall World Cup winner when she won her maiden International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Cup crown in St Moritz (in a break from tradition, that victory was celebrated with brownies instead of cake).

As she prepared for the skeleton competition at Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, Bos sat down for an exclusive interview with Olympics.com to discuss her rise in the sport, her thoughts on an incredible World Cup season, and handling the pressure of being a gold-medal favourite at Beijing 2022.

"Honestly, it's been a bit of a crazy season," Bos says. "I don't think I fully realise what I've done yet."

Bos isn't exaggerating; over the course of the past three months, the Dutchwoman won her first World Cup race, her first European title, and first World Cup overall championship. That's a remarkable streak of success for Bos, who earned her victories in the midst of a global pandemic. So, when asked which achievement was the most memorable, Bos understandably picks the one where her family and friends could cheer her on in person.

"My first ever World Cup, in Winterberg, was the most memorable I think. It was the first race in a long time that we actually had some spectators, and my parents were there as well, which was amazing. It was great to share the victory with them and everyone else.

"It was kind of unexpected for me as well (winning the race); I knew I was doing well in training, but I didn't realise I was as good as I was."

The tale of Bos' rise to World Cup champion is nothing new; it is the result of years of hard work, sacrifice and dedication to her craft. But what is interesting to note is that Bos transitioned to skeleton from bobsleigh, where she also experienced success.

A bronze for Bos at the Youth Olympic Games

Growing up in the city of Ede in the Netherlands, Bos spent a lot of her time outside of school training and competing in gymnastics, and it was (indirectly) through the sport that Bos was introduced to bobsleigh.

"A couple of my friends and I were helping out at a sports day in Ede, and there was a push track for bobsleigh for people to try.

"My friends tried it first, and they came and found me and told me, 'You have to come and try this.' So that's how I got into bobsleigh for the first time."

A month after the sports day, Bos, who was 16 at the time, received an email asking her if she'd like to travel to Austria for a week and undergo bobsleigh training.

Bos credits her gymnastics background for progressing so quickly in bobsleigh, and before too long she was piloting a sled for the Netherlands' national team alongside brakewoman Mandy Groot at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games, where the pair won a bronze medal.

But despite her early success in bobsleigh, Bos soon encountered difficulties competing at the senior level.

"It was really hard, because I was at an age where women aren't that tall and heavy yet," Bos explains.

"So when I did compete with the bigger girls, I was just nowhere. I was probably 10 kilos lighter and 10 to 15 centimetres shorter than the average bobsled woman. But since I was a good pilot, they [the Dutch bobsled and skeleton federation] told me, 'Why don't you give skeleton a try?"

The federation explained to Bos that her athletic profile would be a better fit for skeleton, and that the flexibility she had developed through gymnastics would give her an advantage in running with the sled in the awkward position unique to the sport.

So, in the fall of 2013, Bos moved from bobsleigh to skeleton - but the transition was not a smooth one.

"Honestly, my first runs were terrible.

"But I'm not the type of person to give up after the first go. I wanted to try again and see if I improved, and over the next couple of weeks, I got quite a good handle on how things worked in skeleton. I wasn't by any means the best in the field, but I was earning a couple of top-10 finishes in the Europa Cup in my first season, which I thought was a good starting point, and I made a plan from there."

An Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018

Bos' persistence in honing her craft began to pay dividends; in 2016 she won a silver medal at the junior world championships and earned a bronze medal at the Olympic test event in PyeongChang in 2017 - her first on the World Cup circuit.

One year later, Bos was back in the Republic of Korea to compete at the same track after becoming the first Dutch athlete to qualify and compete in skeleton at the Olympic Games.

"I was just happy to be there, and to get an eighth-place finish was more than I could have dreamt of four years earlier when I planned to give it [competing at the Olympics] a go. Basically, it was a great experience and I was super, super stoked with my results, [even if I] didn't win a medal."

Finding the podium at the World Cup

Thanks to her finish at the Games, Bos was eligible to receive national funding for the first time. She was able to bring 2008 world champion and coach Kristan Bromley, whom she was working with in the build-up to the Olympics, on as her permanent coach.

Bos also brought in her former teammate Joska Le Conte to be her personal track coach.

"I went from doing everything myself and kind of figuring [it out on my own] to having a support team, which honestly took me some time to adjust to because I was so used to doing everything [solo]," Bos says.

"I do an individual sport, but without my team that I have around me now, I couldn't have done what I've done the past couple of months."

The coaching Bos is getting now is a far cry from the years she spent in the lower tiers of sport. As a physiotherapy student, Bos would offer physio sessions to other athletes in return for coaching.

Now a qualified physiotherapist and with a new support team behind her, Bos has been able to achieve new heights in skeleton.

In the 2020/21 season, Bos finished on the podium at five of the eight events (three second-place finishes and two third-place) to secure a bronze medal in the overall competition.

The following year, Bos secured two race wins en route to her first World Cup and European championship.

"It still feels a bit unreal," Bos says.

"I did an interview with the Dutch Olympic Committee in December last year, and they asked me what I would like to achieve in my career. I told them I wanted to win a World Cup one day and be the best in the world by winning the overall title - things like that. Two months later, I've achieved both of these things and I'm the European champion as well.

"It's a bit unbelievable, but it just means our process is right and at the moment, I'm the most consistent slider in the field, which is good for my confidence at this point."

Bos' goals for Beijing 2022

Bos now begins Beijing 2022 as the presumptive favourite in the women's skeleton competition, but she doesn't feel any additional pressure from being labelled as a gold-medal favourite.

"Yeah, it's a bit crazy in a way, but it doesn't bother me at this point. It might in the next couple of weeks, but at this point I'm quite relaxed about it. I guess I'm just not that deterred by what everybody else wants me to do because I'm just trying to do what I want to do. My biggest problem is my own fixation on being perfect and getting frustrated because I can't."

To that end, Bos is keeping the same goals for these Games as she had four years earlier in PyeongChang.

"I went to PyeongChang with the goal to do four good runs, and that's what I did and I am very proud of that performance. And [I will have the same goals] in Beijing because the only way you're going to perform well is if you do four consistent runs in the race. But obviously, if I would do that, the result would be different than in Korea because my level of sliding is so much better now."

Bos will once again be the only Dutch skeleton athlete at Beijing 2022, but she hopes her performance at the Games and other competitions can help future generations become athletes.

"If my performance and story can inspire athletes and others to become athletes - even if they don't do skeleton - that would be really cool; I would love to be that person that can inspire other people.

"If we can get somebody involved in my sport because I'm the only female Dutch athlete in skeleton at the moment, that would be great."