After winning the silver medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2005 FIBT World Championships in Calgary, Pikus-Pace emerged as one of the favorites to medal at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Turin. Her medal ambitions would be dashed on October 19, 2005 at the Canada Olympic Park bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in Calgary when her right leg was broken by a four-man bobsleigh that failed to brake at the finish line. The bobsleigh ejected out of the end of the track and hit Pikus-Pace and teammate Lea Ann Parsley, narrowly missing three other team members. Pikus-Pace underwent surgery to repair her broken leg, which included an insertion of a titanium rod into her leg. She would return to competition seven weeks later at Igls, Austria, finishing 20th. She would chronicle her comeback from the 2005 freak accident which prevented her participation in Turin. This story was told in the critically acclaimed documentary "114 Days: The Race to Save a Dream". The US Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation petitioned to both the FIBT and the IOC to include Pikus-Pace in the women's skeleton competition, but to no avail. The only American representative in women's skeleton was Katie Uhlaender who finished sixth.