ALTENBERG, Germany-Christine de Bruin won World Championship gold in the female monobob to lead Canada to a three-medal day on Saturday.

Cynthia Appiah was second in the female monobob, while Justin Kripps and Cam Stones won bronze in the two-man event.

From Bruin. a 32-year-old man from Stony Plain, Alberta., won his first gold medal in the World Cup with a time of one minute 59.96 seconds. The six-time World Cup medalist in the two-woman race was just 0.01 seconds ahead of Appiah after the first round.

“I’m still surprised,” de Bruin said. “I certainly thought that I would get my first victory in two women, not in a monobob, but this is good and shows that we are on the right track.”

De Bruin improved his start time by 0.05 seconds on the final descent and sailed to victory on the 17-cornering track with 1,413 meters.

“It’s great to have Cynthia and Melissa (Lotholz) here in the World Cup,” de Bruin said. “Both girls are phenomenal push athletes, and they both ran with me before they started driving. It’s great to see both of them become world-class riders now, and it also made me want to be better as an athlete.”

Kaillie Humphries, who won Olympic gold for Canada and is now competing for the United States, finished third.

Appiah, 31, who has two silver medals and a bronze medal in his last three races, said an expensive mistake at the bottom of the track cost him gold on Saturday.

“I am very happy that I won my third medal in a row, but very disappointed with my second downhill. Things started to snowball and despite the struggle in every turn, it was not enough to keep your head, ” said Appiah, who leads the overall standings of the monobob World Cup.

“I am very confident that I can win medals in every race. I know that my descents are fatal, and I can take advantage of this advantage that I give myself by making two decent descents at each race.”

Lotholz, by Barrhead, Alb., was ninth.

In both men, Kripps, of Summerland, British Columbia, and Stones, of Whitby, Ontario., were seventh after the first run, but the 34-year-old Kripps had the third fastest thrust and an almost flawless ride in the second run to finish third in 1:50.68.

“We didn’t have the best draw when we finished 13th of the first round. The track got a little frosty and I had a mistake at the bottom, but the second run was more even and we accelerated with a big push and a good workout,” Kripps said.

For Kripps, it was the 19th medal in a two-world Cup career. Nine of them came with the 29-year-old’s stones in his sled since the two joined forces after the Olympics.

Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis won gold (1:50.37), while their compatriots, the Germans Christoph Avoine and Issam Ammour were second (1:50.59).

Chris Spring of Vancouver and Mike Evelyn of Ottawa finished fourth.