Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson equalled Britain's best two-man bobsleigh result at a World Championship in 53 years, as they finished joint-fourth in Canada.
Former decathlete Hall and serving Paratrooper Gleeson missed out on a first British medal since Olympic champions Tony Nash and Robin Dixon won bronze in Cortina in 1966.
Hall and Gleeson matched the result of Bruce Tasker and current four-man teammate Joel Fearon, who themselves finished fourth in Igls, Austria in 2016.
The pair, racing in a crowd-funded sled, had been fourth overnight after two fine runs in Whistler and held the position at the finish despite having seen Canada’s Chris Spring and Neville Wright jump ahead of them after Run 3.
They clocked an overall time of 3:25.68 – exactly the same as the Canadians, down to a hundredth of a second, over almost four miles of racing at speeds of up to 94mph.
It marks another milestone for 28-year-old Hall and 22-year-old World Championship debutant Gleeson, having set three successive personal bests on the World Cup circuit since the turn of the year, including a first top-six two-man result for GB for 13 years.
Fellow Brits Lamin Deen and Toby Olubi missed out on a place in the final run and the top 20 after they were disqualified for a weight discrepancy at the end of Run 3.
Germany’s Francesco Friedrich equalled the legendary Eugenio Monti’s record of five successive World Championship victories as he won his battle for gold with Canadian rival Justin Kripps.
Friedrich became the first man to win all eight World Cup races in a single season with victory in Calgary last week and he further cemented his place as an all-time great as he took top spot by 0.59 seconds.
Nico Walther made it two medals for the Germans as he beat the Brits and Spring & Wright to bronze.
Earlier in the day, Mica McNeill and Montell Douglas finished the first two of their four World Championship runs in the two-woman bob in 13th position. They race again at 7.30pm GMT this evening.
Sportsbeat 2019