From Lake Placid, USA
(March 7, 2024) – The biggest field anyone can remember in a single skeleton race took to the ice in Lake Placid for the penultimate men’s North American Cup of the season. The field had a world champion and multiple World Championship and World Cup medalists in it, and one of those medalists came out on top.
Two-time World Cup gold medalist Zheng Yin took the lead in the first heat from the 39th starting position, ahead of Vladyslav Heraskevych, while 2023 world champion Matt Weston sat third, .08 ahead of America’s stop slider Austin Florian in fourth.
In the second run, Florian took the lead from Wenqiang Geng, a multi-time World Cup medalist in his own right, and held it after Weston couldn’t match his second run time.
Heraskevych went next, and while the Ukrainian couldn’t quite hang with Florian’s second run downtime, he did have enough to score at least a bronze.
Finally it was Yin’s turn off the top. The Chinese star was out-pushed by Florian, but was able to rally back late in his run and found speed where Florian couldn’t to win gold, his first medal in Lake Placid.
Florian took silver, his third straight North American Cup medal dating back to 2018.
Heraskevych continued a great run of NAC finishes where he has yet to finish off of the podium on the tour.
Weston took fourth, ahead of Geng in fifth. Marcus Wyatt rounded out the top six for Great Britain.
Part the podium’s success was due to apparent great work by the track crew. Despite starting well down in the starting order, the top four all came from starting spots of 36th and back.
Back through the field, Laurence Bostock finished just out of the top ten in 12th for Great Britain. Kane Densley put all four British sleds in the top 25 with a 23rd place finish.
Behind Florian, the United States placed two sliders in the top 25 with Nick Tucker back from Europe into 20th. Bradley Nicol finished 31st, Sam Allred 35th, Darryl Payne 42nd and Andrew Whittier-Neises 49th to finish out the American effort.
Fort Canada, Josip Brusic finished 25th in his first look at the track in Lake Placid. Ryan Kuehn just missed out on a second run in 29th. Rookie Sebastian Regnier finished 46th.
Australia entered two sleds in the field, with Nick Timmings finishing in 18th and Peter Makrides in 37th. Dutch slider Mike Rogals made his annual start, put down a pair of solid runs and finished 22nd.
With one race left in the North American Cup season Brendan Doyle still leads the Hyungjun Sim by 17 points, with Jonathan Yaw in third place, seven points ahead of Bradley Nicol.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Finish |
| 1 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 39 | 4.81 | 4.84 | 54.93 | 55.07 | 1:50.00 |
| 2 | Austin Florian | USA | 36 | 4.79 | 4.75 | 55.38 | 55.20 | 1:50.58 |
| 3 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 48 | 5.08 | 5.06 | 55.29 | 55.49 | 1:50.78 |
| 4 | Matt Weston | GBR | 42 | 4.92 | 5.11 | 55.30 | 55.67 | 1:50.97 |
| 5 | Wenqiang Geng | CHN | 24 | 4.99 | 5.01 | 55.82 | 55.60 | 1:51.42 |
| 6 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 41 | 4.91 | 5.06 | 55.49 | 56.17 | 1:51.66 |
| 7 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 49 | 4.88 | 4.93 | 55.85 | 55.93 | 1:51.78 |
| 8 | Amdedeo Bagnis | ITA | 32 | 4.93 | 4.86 | 56.00 | 55.81 | 1:51.81 |
| 9 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 35 | 5.10 | 5.06 | 56.26 | 55.79 | 1:52.05 |
| 10 | Wengang Yan | CHN | 22 | 5.07 | 5.06 | 55.98 | 56.09 | 1:52.07 |
| 11 | Jing Zhang | CHN | 29 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 56.14 | 56.40 | 1:52.54 |
| 12 | Laurence Bostock | GBR | 33 | 4.88 | 4.91 | 56.21 | 56.51 | 1:52.72 |
| 13 | Qinwei Lin | CHN | 23 | 4.78 | 4.81 | 56.07 | 56.70 | 1:52.77 |
| 14 | Alexander Schlintner | AUT | 47 | 5.03 | 4.98 | 56.56 | 56.26 | 1:52.82 |
| 15 | Livio Summermatter | SUI | 17 | 4.84 | 4.84 | 56.51 | 56.38 | 1:52.89 |
| 16 | Samule Maier | AUT | 51 | 5.06 | 5.06 | 56.34 | 56.57 | 1:52.91 |
| 17 | Seunggi Jung | KOR | 20 | 4.93 | 4.87 | 56.75 | 56.38 | 1:53.13 |
| 18 | Nicholas Timmings | AUS | 21 | 5.15 | 5.09 | 56.67 | 56.61 | 1:53.28 |
| 19 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 30 | 5.13 | 5.13 | 56.65 | 56.75 | 1:53.40 |
| 20 | Nicholas Tucker | USA | 12 | 4.99 | 5.00 | 56.69 | 57.16 | 1:53.85 |
| 21 | Giovanni Marchetti | ITA | 38 | 4.99 | 5.00 | 56.65 | 57.22 | 1:53.87 |
| 22 | Mike Rogals | NED | 26 | 5.35 | 5.38 | 56.69 | 57.23 | 1:53.92 |
| 23 | Kane Densley | GBR | 50 | 4.86 | 5.91 | 56.84 | 57.18 | 1:54.02 |
| 24 | Yaroslav Lavreniuk | UKR | 16 | 5.17 | 5.17 | 56.84 | 57.35 | 1:54.19 |
| 25 | Josip Brusic | CAN | 3 | 4.92 | 4.95 | 56.83 | 57.93 | 1:54.76 |
| 26 | Jisoo Kim | KOR19 | 19 | 4.83 | 56.94 | |||
| 27 | Vinzenz Buff | SUI | 46 | 5.20 | 57.01 | |||
| 28 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 45 | 5.08 | 57.04 | |||
| 29 | Ryan Kuehn | CAN | 7 | 4.85 | 57.09 | |||
| 30 | Hyungjun Sim | KOR | 4 | 5.00 | 57.18 | |||
| 31 | Bradley Nicol | USA | 6 | 5.01 | 57.22 | |||
| 32 | Lin-Wei Peng | TPE | 8 | 5.11 | 57.24 | |||
| 33 | Manuel Schwärzer | ITA | 34 | 5.00 | 57.34 | |||
| 34 | Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 43 | 5.03 | 57.44 | |||
| 35 | Sam Allred | USA | 2 | 4.95 | 57.52 | |||
| 36 | Chanhyuk Yeo | KOR | 1 | 5.07 | 57.63 | |||
| 37 | Peter Makrides | AUS | 11 | 5.15 | 57.72 | |||
| 38 | Yeonsu Shin | KOR | 25 | 5.26 | 57.75 | |||
| 39 | Lars Rumo | SUI | 44 | 5.35 | 57.81 | |||
| 40 | Jonathan Yaw | MAS | 5 | 5.12 | 57.85 | |||
| 41 | Guido Persoon | NED | 31 | 5.04 | 58.05 | |||
| 42 | Darryl Payne | USA | 9 | 5.00 | 58.23 | |||
| 43 | Joeri van Kuppeveld | NED | 18 | 4.89 | 58.24 | |||
| 44 | Maxime Mingeon | FRA | 27 | 5.28 | 58.33 | |||
| 45 | Gidon Bante | NED | 40 | 5.17 | 58.37 | |||
| 46 | Sebastien Regnier | CAN | 14 | 4.77 | 58.44 | |||
| 47 | Chun-Hung Chiang | TPE | 28 | 5.42 | 58.46 | |||
| 48 | Oren Milstein | ISR | 10 | 5.30 | 58.47 | |||
| 49 | Andrew Whittier-Neises | USA | 13 | 4.94 | 58.59 | |||
| 50 | Eduardo Strapasson | BRA | 37 | 5.54 | 59.37 | |||
| DNS | Jared Firestone | ISR | 15 | DNS |
