From Lillehammer, NOR
(December 7, 2025) – Qinwei Lin spent the bulk of his first season on the IBSF World Cup men’s skeleton tour showing glimpses of speed with a pair of top fives coupled with a handful of races well outside of the top ten.
But he finished the season with a bang as he won handily ahead of a trio of Europeans for his first men’s skeleton World Cup gold medal.
It was tight after the first heat. Lin held the lead, but only by .03 ahead of Austria’s Samuel Maier, with Axel Jungk, Marcus Wyatt, Christopher Grotheer and Felix Keisinger all stacked up within .2 of Lin.
Some movement took place in the second heat. China’s Zheng Yin moved up from sixth in the first heat to fifth, ahead of Keisinger and Wenhao Chen, who were tied behind him for sixth.
Wyatt took the lead with three to go after him, and then held that lead and moved into the medals after he edged Jungk by just .02, but then himself was bumped by only a hundredth of a second by Maier.
That left Lin at the top of the track by himself. After a track hold to retrieve something dropped in the track, Lin pushed off with a race-quickest 4.65 start to put him well ahead of Maier early on. Lin’s advantage slowly dropped, but nowhere near fast enough for Lin to lose his lead. He crossed the line as the winner, .12 ahead of Maier for gold.
The win was the second on the season for Lin on tour. Earlier in Winterberg he had won gold alongside Dan Zhao in the Mixed Team event.
For Maier, the silver was another close call this season. He’d previously won silver in both the men’s skeleton and Mixed Team events in Winterberg.
Wyatt won bronze, Jungk fourth, Yin fifth, and Keisinger and Chen rounding out the top six.
The race doubled as the European Championships, and in that Maier took gold ahead of Wyatt and Jungk.
Austin Florian had the third quickest start in the second heat on his way to 19th as the top American in the field. Dan Barefoot was not 21st for only the second time this season as he finished 25th, while Nick Tucker narrowly missed the second heat and finished 27th but had a top ten start.
British slider Laurence Bostock was 17th in his second start of the 2024/2025 World Cup season.
Matt Weston needed a top ten finish to clinch the season title. He finished eighth and finished the season with his second straight Crystal Globe. Teammate Marcus Wyatt made it a one-two for Team GB in second, 83 points back. Despite missing one race due to injury, Christopher Grotheer finished the season in third, 26 ahead of Austria’s Samy Maier in fourth. Axel Jugnk finished the year with a pair of fourth place finishes to end the season in fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Qinwei Lin | CHN | 13 | 4.67 | 4.65 | 51.25 | 51.44 | 1:42.69 |
| 2 | Samuel Maier | AUT | 3 | 4.94 | 4.91 | 51.28 | 51.53 | 1:42.81 |
| 3 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 5 | 4.70 | 4.70 | 51.39 | 51.43 | 1:42.82 |
| 4 | Axel Jungk | GER | 1 | 4.80 | 4.78 | 51.38 | 51.46 | 1:42.84 |
| 5 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 7 | 4.76 | 4.74 | 51.44 | 51.48 | 1:42.92 |
| 6 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 9 | 4.76 | 4.72 | 51.67 | 51.35 | 1:43.02 |
| 6 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 6 | 4.77 | 4.71 | 51.44 | 51.58 | 1:43.02 |
| 8 | Matt Weston | GBR | 8 | 4.67 | 4.66 | 51.53 | 51.60 | 1:43.13 |
| 9 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 4 | 4.89 | 4.85 | 51.40 | 51.75 | 1:43.15 |
| 10 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 12 | 4.78 | 4.77 | 51.68 | 51.68 | 1:43.36 |
| 11 | Lukas Nydegger | GER | 16 | 4.91 | 4.92 | 51.71 | 51.91 | 1:43.62 |
| 12 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 18 | 4.96 | 4.93 | 51.91 | 51.73 | 1:43.64 |
| 13 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 10 | 4.90 | 4.87 | 51.84 | 51.90 | 1:43.74 |
| 14 | Vinzenz Buff | SUI | 14 | 4.99 | 4.95 | 51.89 | 51.94 | 1:43.83 |
| 15 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 19 | 4.91 | 4.90 | 52.02 | 52.00 | 1:44.02 |
| 16 | Giovanni Marchetti | ITA | 23 | 4.78 | 4.81 | 51.86 | 52.21 | 1:44.07 |
| 17 | Laurence Bostock | GBR | 11 | 4.76 | 4.78 | 51.95 | 52.13 | 1:44.08 |
| 18 | Alexander Schlintner | AUT | 17 | 4.89 | 4.88 | 52.16 | 52.00 | 1:44.16 |
| 19 | Haifeng Zhu | CHN | 15 | 4.85 | 4.83 | 52.12 | 52.20 | 1:44.32 |
| 20 | Austin Florain | USA | 2 | 4.78 | 4.69 | 52.07 | 52.25 | 1:44.32 |
| 21 | Jisoo Kim | KOR | 20 | 4.71 | 4.74 | 52.23 | 52.32 | 1:44.55 |
| 22 | Davis Valdosvskis | LAT | 21 | 4.95 | 4.90 | 52.46 | 52.15 | 1:44.61 |
| 23 | Seunggi Jung | KOR | 38 | 5.01 | 5.01 | 52.34 | 52.35 | 1:44.69 |
| 24 | Livio Summermatter | SUI | 30 | 4.83 | 4.83 | 52.51 | 52.47 | 1:44.98 |
| 25 | Daniel Barefoot | USA | 33 | 4.86 | 4.91 | 52.50 | 52.51 | 1:45.01 |
| 26 | Yaroslav Lavreniuk | UKR | 24 | 4.95 | 52.51 | |||
| 27 | Nicholas Tucker | USA | 31 | 4.78 | 52.67 | |||
| 28 | Theordor Buligescu | ROU | 27 | 4.90 | 52.76 | |||
| 29 | Vladyslav Polyvach | POL | 37 | 4.93 | 52.77 | |||
| 30 | Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 25 | 4.90 | 52.79 | |||
| 31 | Jared Firestone | ISR | 22 | 4.91 | 52.80 | |||
| 32 | Jonathan Yaw | MAS | 34 | 5.00 | 52.87 | |||
| 33 | Colin Freling | BEL | 32 | 5.14 | 52.89 | |||
| 34 | Joeri van Kuppeveld | NED | 36 | 4.76 | 52.96 | |||
| 35 | Timon Drahonovsky | CZE | 35 | 5.08 | 53.05 | |||
| 36 | Lin-Wei Peng | TPE | 28 | 5.00 | 53.26 | |||
| 37 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 26 | 4.88 | 53.46 | |||
| 38 | Jeff Bauer | LUX | 29 | 5.23 | 54.04 |