From the home office in Durham, USA
Below are the final points from the IBSF European Cup.
Women’s Skeleton
Janine Becker finished first overall in a very competitive field for women’s skeleton. The German athlete failed to win a gold medal in the eight races across four tracks, but also never finished worst than third. Becker’s level of consistency is what ultimately kept her ahead of Canadian Mirela Rahneva.
Rahneva was quick almost everywhere, winning gold at least once in three of the four venues she competed at. However, three seventh place finishes ultimately set her back to second place overall.
Third place went to Maxi Just. The German junior scored gold medals in the events where Rahneva didn’t. Rahneva’s one more gold medal is what proved to help with the one point difference.
| Pos | Name | Nation | Best Finish | Worst Finish | Points |
| 1 | Janine Becker | GER | 2 (Kön) | 3 (Alt, Sig, SM) | 460 |
| 2 | Mirela Rahneva | CAN | 1 (Sig, SM) | 7 (Alt, Kön) | 414 |
| 3 | Maxi Just | GER | 1 (Alt, Kön) | 7 (Sig) | 413 |
| 4 | Corinna Leipold | GER | 2 (Alt) | 9 (Sig) | 359 |
| 5 | Anastasia Novikova | RUS | 6 (Alt) | 19 (SM) | 250 |
| 6 | Kellie Delka | USA | 7 (Alt) | 15 (Sig) | 246 |
| 7 | Samantha Culiver | USA | 8 (Kön) | 14 (SM) | 240 |
| 8 | Renata Khuzina | RUS | 2 (Alt) | 5 (Sig) | 215 |
| 9 | Marta Orlowska | POL | 6 (SM) | 28 (SM) | 204 |
| 10 | Olga Potylitsina | RUS | 1 (Alt) | 7 (Sig) | 198 |
Men’s Skeleton
It was a German sweep of the top three positions in men’s skeleton on the European Cup tour, with Fabian Küchler ultimately taking the top position by a mere 3 points over Dominic Rady. Both athletes won two gold medals during the season, and both had their struggles in Sigulda.
Coming into the final two races in St. Moritz, Rady held the advantage over Küchler. Rady faltered in the first of two races, however, finishing in sixth while Küchler finished second, giving Rady only a 7 point advantage going into the final race of the season (Rady 364, Küchler 357). Rady finished strong with a second place run, but Küchler took home gold, and with it the overall European Cup title.
Felix Keisinger finished the season third, on the stregth of three top-threes, and no finish worst than eighth. Of the top three, Keisinger was the only athlete to not finish outside of the top eight, but failed to score a single gold medal, which ultimately left him in third.
| Pos | Name | Nation | Best Finish | Worst Finish | Points |
| 1 | Fabian Küchler | GER | 1 (Alt, SM) | 10 (Sig) | 432 |
| 2 | Dominic Rady | GER | 1 (Kön) | 11 (Sig) | 429 |
| 3 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 2 (Kön) | 8 (Alt) | 384 |
| 4 | Ivo Steinbergs | LAT | 1 (Sig) | 11 (Alt) | 349 |
| 5 | Colin Domke | GER | 2 (Alt, Kön) | 11 (Sig) | 329 |
| 6 | Alexander Mutovin | RUS | 1 (Alt, Sig) | 7 (Alg) | 253 |
| 7 | Sergei Chudinov | RUS | 1 (Alt) | 6 (Alt) | 245 |
| 8 | Austin McCrary | USA | 7 (Kön) | 14 (Sig, SM) | 240 |
| 9 | Kevin Boyer | CAN | 3 (SM) | 20 (Kön) | 221 |
| 10 | Jack Thomas | GBR | 5 (Kön) | 20 (Sig) | 217 |
Women’s Bobsled
Aleksandra Rodionova beat out two German juniors to take the overall Women’s Bobsled title, beating out Stephanie Schneider for the top prize.
With no one managing to run all of the races, Rodionova managed to be the most consistent of those who raced, never finishing outside of the top three. Schneider, who raced in one less race, won gold once but also had finishes of sixth and seventh, which left her out of reach from the top spot.
Sabrina Duljevic finished well behind the top two in third, having only run five of the eight races (both Schneider and Duljevic skipped Sigulda), but did win in Winterberg.
| Pos | Name | Nation | Best Finish | Worst Finish | Points |
| 1 | Aleksandra Rodionova | RUS | 1 (Alt, Sig) | 3 (Igl) | 652 |
| 2 | Stephanie Schneider | GER | 1 (Kön) | 7 (SM) | 614 |
| 3 | Sabrina Duljevic | GER | 1 (Win) | 11 (Kön) | 472 |
| 4 | Nadezhda Sergeeva | RUS | 2 (Sig, SM) | 6 (Alt, Igl) | 464 |
| 5 | Mica McNeill | GBR | 4 (Kön, SM) | 7 (Alt) | 456 |
| 6 | Kim Kalicki | GER | 2 (Win) | 10 (SM) | 438 |
| 7 | Lien de Decker | BEL | 4 (Sig) | 15 (Igl) | 404 |
| 8 | Maria Oshigiri | JPN | 7 (Win) | 16 (SM) | 396 |
| 9 | Elizaveta Zubkova | RUS | 3 (Sig) | 14 (Igl) | 352 |
| 10 | Mariama Jamanka | GER | 1 (Win) | 3 (Win, Alt) | 324 |
Two-Man Bobsled
As is tradition in the European Cup, the two-man bobsled program saw huge fields of sleds as the season went on, finishing with 63 different pilots running at least one race during the season.
Despite the large fields, no one pilot managed to run the full schedule of races, with Johannes Lochner joining his German bobsled teammates by skipping out on Sigulda. The races that he did run, though, were near-perfect, with Lochner winning five of the six races he entered.
Second place went to Maxim Andrianov, who never finished outside of the top five throughout the season. Third place went to Christoph Hafer, who much like Andrianov was consistently in the top five, finishing just two points behind the Russian.
| Pos | Name | Nation | Best Finish | Worst Finish | Points |
| 1 | Johannes Lochner | GER | 1 (Win, Alt, Kön, Igl) | 3 (SM) | 702 |
| 2 | Maxim Andrianov | RUS | 2 (Alt, Sig, SM) | 5 (Igl) | 614 |
| 3 | Christoph Hafer | GER | 2 (Win) | 5 (Kön) | 612 |
| 4 | Richard Oelsner | GER | 4 (Win, Alt) | 10 (SM) | 532 |
| 5 | Alexey Negodaylo | RUS | 6 (Sig) | 18 (Alt) | 476 |
| 6 | Clemens Bracher | SUI | 5 (Win) | 13 (SM) | 472 |
| 7 | Dmitriy Popov | RUS | 5 (Sig) | 37 (Win) | 458 |
| 8 | Bruce Tasker | GBR | 6 (SM) | 23 (Win) | 405 |
| 9 | Beat Hefti | SUI | 1 (SM) | 2 (Kön, SM) | 340 |
| 10 | Pius Meyerhans | SUI | 6 (Win) | 8 (Win, Sig) | 332 |
Four-Man Bobsled
There was no question about who the four-man season in European Cup belonged to this year: Johannes Lochner managed to dominate both two and four-man seasons, putting up an amazing 936 points in four-man competition. The German junior won gold everywhere but St. Moritz, where he “suffered” a fourth-place finish to round out his season.
If it weren’t for his teammate, Florian Wagner would have had a very successful season, having finished in the top five all but once (Winterberg). Teammate Christoph Hafer rounded out the German sweep of the top three.
| Pos | Name | Nation | Best Finish | Worst Finish | Points |
| 1 | Johannes Lochner | GER | 1 (Win, Alt, Kön, Igl | 4 (SM) | 936 |
| 2 | Florian Wagner | GER | 2 (Kön) | 9 (Win) | 776 |
| 3 | Christoph Hafer | GER | 2 (Alt, Kön) | 11 (Igl) | 748 |
| 4 | Dmitriy Popov | RUS | 6 (Kön, Igl, SM) | 13 (SM) | 572 |
| 5 | Maxim Andrianov | RUS | 4 (Kön x2) | 7 (Igl, SM) | 544 |
| 6 | Patrick Baumgartner | ITA | 6 (Kön) | 23 (Igl) | 483 |
| 7 | Lukas Kolb | AUT | 2 (SM) | 16 (Kön) | 466 |
| 8 | Clemens Bracher | SUI | 6 (Win) | 18 (Win, SM) | 460 |
| 9 | Richard Oelsner | GER | 4 (Win, Alt) | 12 (SM) | 424 |
| 10 | Dominik Dvorak | CZE | 8 (Alt, Igl) | 20 (Kön) | 420 |
