The 30-year-old skeleton slider from Nokesville, Virginia dominated in the first three days of IBSF World Championships here last weekend. She brought home two world championships medals — a gold and a silver.

On Friday, March 15, Ro became the first American woman to medal in the individual skeleton world championships since Noelle Pikus-Pace earned silver in 2013. She followed it up the next day, by winning the gold in the mixed team relay event, becoming the only U.S. skeleton athlete to earn two podium finishes at the world championships.

“It’s a great mental boost that it’s possible to be able to show up after three days of competition and secure some medals and hardware,” she said. “I think for (the U.S. skeleton team), it’s just going back to that drawing board and figure out how to make this more efficient as far as recovery and training, but it’s great mentally going into an Olympic year.”

Ro kicked off the world championships on March 6 with the third-fastest opening run. However, in her second heat she posted only the 10th fastest run, which seemed to have put her well out of podium range, heading into the next day … but it didn’t.

“Once I got the nerves out the first day, it was just settling in and kind of going back to the basics because in official training I was doing really well,” she said. “It was just taking away the extra pressure that gets put on to you when you’re at a home event and everyone is watching.”

Ro returned back to her dominating form on Friday, and posted the third-fastest run times in the third and fourth heat, to secure the silver.

Her efforts carried over to Saturday, when she teamed up with Austin Florian and became the first-ever non-German team to win a world title in the mixed skeleton event, since its debut in 2020. Ro said it’s been interesting because a lot of athletes carry nerves differently.

“So it’s learning how he copes with a stressful environment, versus him learning how I cope and just trusting that when we get to the sled we dial in and we do what we need to do to get the job done,” she said.

For those who have been paying attention to skeleton, Ro’s performance last weekend wasn’t much of a shock. Last season, she earned her first-ever World Cup gold medal here in Lake Placid. She’s also collected six North American Cup gold medals at this track.

Throughout most of the year, Ro lives and trains in Lake Placid. She said what’s been key to her success at this track has been being flexible and adaptable to any weather conditions.

“You can’t come in with one way of thinking on the sled,” she said. “You have to read everything and just be aware that things can change on a dime.”

While Ro capped off the year in a commanding fashion, she’s hoping to continue growing as a slider for next season.

“It’s been really surreal just to see how far we’ve come from doing sliding school camps with Don Hass to being on the highest level on home ice, heading into an Olympic year,” she said. “Just to see that we’ve made that progress has been really awesome.”

The IBSF World Championships will host it’s final two days of racing today and tomorrow, following a four-day break. Today, the first and second heat for four-man bobsled will be at 8 a.m. and 9:45 a.m., respectively. The first heat for the two-woman event will be at 1 p.m., with the second heat at 2:30 p.m. Saturday’s third and fourth heat for both events will have identical start times.