As the FIBT Women's Bobsled World Championship contest inches near, the U.S. team stands to achieve at least one goal that has eluded them for nearly two Olympic quadrennials: a World Championship gold medal and even two platforms on the podium.

How did this come about after a shaky season start? Look west, young fan.

The level of competition in women's bobsled has been electrified with a matrix of unexpected forces: a surprising show of stalwart and declining performances, guileless ambition of second-tier teams, the unexpected late-season challenges by rookies, and the surreptitious hand…or should I say, "rib"…of injury.

For fans of the women's sport, things have never been more exciting.

Let's start with the fact that the German team failed to make the podium at the opening Whistler race, and most remarkably so since Whistler is indeed a driver's track. The only Olympic gold medalist in the game these days, Sandra Kiriasis, showed either a lack of concentration or a lack of training at Whistler. Regardless, one thing was certain: she had not learned much of the extra-technical track during her week of training at the site of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic competition. To make matters worse for Kiriasis, she seems to have lost her push, and dropping that constant from her winning formula seems to be devastating. So, if one athlete's success is based on another's failure, we might think that Shauna Rohbock, the top U.S. women's driver, got lucky.

No way. Not this time. Not a chance. Rohbock has come into her own.

Winning a gold medal at the Whistler World Cup was more than an achievement for Rohbock where she and the quietly tenacious brakeman, Elana Meyers, capped the track record, and where Rohbock once again showed that she favors a technical track that demands razor-sharp focus and study. Off the start at Whistler with a top-three push, she gained speed at the bottom of the track to score a No. 1 place at every split from half-point down, maintained clean lines, and stayed off the walls. It was the best -- and most consistent driving of her career.

Since Rohbock's method is to study a track and Kiriasis takes an organic, "let-me-at-it" approach, then we can see why they drove in separate directions leaving Vancouver. Kiriasis and the German team headed south to Park City for an easy World Cup win, while Rohbock and the U.S. team passed up the Park City race and headed east for practice on this season's Big Kahuna: Lake Placid, the site of this weekend's World Championships.

The Lake Placid track is fast, technical and quirky at the bottom. It's the chameleon track of the lot -- always turning the odds around and twisting experts' predictions. Let's face it: speculation is as good as it gets on the wily track in upstate New York.

Still, while the world champion-to-be is anything but certain, the contenders can be named. Among the dark horses are Canadians Helen Upperton and the fast-rising talent, Kallie Humphries, who have intermittently wowed bobsled fans all season long. Upperton chased every gold medal this season until she dislocated a rib while mounting her sled at Koenigssee, Germany, continuing down that dangerous track in excruciating pain with every breath. Though injury still penalizes her push, her driving is super, but the impeded start depreciates her clock and thus her chance for a Lake Placid win. But don't discount Helsbobsleigh. She likes the New York ice and Canadian Coach Tuffy Latour is a Lake Placid expatriate who knows the tricks of that track.

Canadian Kallie Humphries may have risen to fame with a Silver medal at Whistler, but it was her 2008 bronze at Lake Placid that plants her firmly in the mix. You can't discount Humphries' speed off the top, but has she learned to control the sled in the clutch of lower-half speed? She still loses time at the bottom, but she remains a strong contender for the third spot on the podium…particularly if Upperson's rib keeps making noise.

That leaves Germany's Cathleen Martini, who is as inconsistent as she is talented. What gives? Martini is great at the start, sometimes. She breaks the speed limit, sometimes. She takes the podium, sometimes. And she's inconsistent, sometimes. Her 0.02-second gold-medal win in Park City will compel her to make a play at Lake Placid, but her switch-back journey tempers her chance to take all. Then, again, she may.

There's more. There's the ever-threatening underdog element in this world-class field.

Erin Pack, the USA 2 pilot, is hitting her goals to guarantee another shot in the driver's seat next season. Had she not forgone the Park City race, she would cleanly be in the top five of the World Cup overall standings --even if she had suffered a mediocre performance in Utah. Still, her success is largely due to a top-rated performance at the start that translates to good stats and a skyward career. Pac's strategic prowess is her strongest asset, and her first-time place on the podium at Whislter would presume a 2010 Olympic gig was all but certain… were it not for Bree Schaaf.

Who?

Schaaf made her USA 3 World Cup debut at Whistler and effortlessly blew past career veterans like Martini, Minichiello, Schramm, Hafner, and Tokovaya in an upset that transcended national competition. This was a worldwide wake-up call. Fortifying her standings with a repeat performance in Park City, she's an unknown factor at the Lake Placid combination track. Her America's Cup standings on the Adirondack track ranks her third, but her determination just may be ranked first. Bree Schaaf is the one to watch.

The factors here are incomplete without the addition of one significant data-point: The U.S. Women's Bobsled Team can boast the best brakemen of its history.

Val Fleming, the 2006 Olympic silver-medal brakeman and teammate-of-record in the Rohbock sled, has overcome injury and inconsistency and has recaptured her standing as a world-class force. The real tale, though, is Michelle Rzepka's break-through performance and the remarkable reliability of bobsled's newcomer and alternate brakeman, Elana Meyers. This back-of-sled talent sings victory for the 2008-2009 World Championships, even if it also suggests unstable teaming arrangements and foreshadows hard decisions going into the Olympic season.

Rzepka is no doubt the strongest brakeman ever to hit the world tour -- bar none. She seems to defy conventional characteristics of brakemen profiles. She's not particularly tall. She doesn't have long-jumper proportions. She isn't a track and field champion. She's just plain powerful. And joined with Erin Pac (who was herself a top-rated brakeman) she's raises the odds that Pac's team can mount the podium at Lake Placid.

Rookie Elana Meyers is a different type. While bobsledders fidget with nervous energy at the top, Elana does not. She and Rohbock share the same start-box mettle of steadiness and end-point focus. Each time Meyers stepped in this year, her team stepped up -- to the top 6 and many times the platform. Those are good odds, especially for year one.

Does the U.S. have the advantage at their home track in Lake Placid? They never did before when they watched the Germans, Canadians and-the Netherlands?-take the gold. But this is a new race. It's a new team. It's a whole new set of odds.

Were it not for Kiriasis, Martini, Schaaf, Pac, Rohbock, Upperson and Humphries, World Champion predictions could be made comfortably.

Not this time. It's anyone's race.