IGLS, Austria — Defending World Cup skeleton champion Noelle Pikus-Pace is scheduled to return to racing today, barely seven weeks after breaking two leg bones in a training accident.
Pikus-Pace, of Orem, is one of four Americans in the 31-woman field for Friday's World Cup event in Austria. Katie Uhlaender, Courtney Yamada and Katie Koczynski will also slide today for the United States, which will send either one or two women to February's Olympic Games in Turin.
Uhlaender is third in this year's World Cup standings, having won bronze medals at both Calgary and Lake Placid — the first two stops of the 2005-06 international season. There are five World Cup races remaining.
Pikus-Pace suffered the injury in Calgary on Oct. 19, when she was standing near the end of the track. A four-man bobsled overran its stop area and crashed into the group, injuring athletes — including Pikus-Pace, who broke the tibia and fibula in her right leg.