Humphries wins women's monobob gold at Beijing Winter Olympics

YANQING, Beijing - Kaillie Humphries of the United States broke Germany's stranglehold on the sliding sports at the Beijing Olympic Winter games on Monday as she won gold of the inaugural women's monobob event.

Humphries clocked a winning time of four minutes 19.27 seconds over four runs to take the gold, followed by another American slider Elana Meyers Taylor in 4:20.81.

Christine de Bruin of Canada finished third in 4:20.81.

The Canadian racer said the bronze she won at monobob would motivate her to perform better at two-woman event.

"It means that I have a really good understanding of the track and with Buj (Kristen Bujnowski) my brakewoman behind me, we have a very competitive push. Put the two together and we should have a great result," she said.

Before Humphries' gold, German racers had triumphed at all of the previous six events in Yanqing, with four golds in luge and two in skeleton.