2014/2015 FIBT World Cup - Men's Skeleton

From Altenberg, GER

Martins Dukurs is playing a different game than everyone else. The Latvian came into the second heat .82 ahead of brother Tomass. That lead was extended to well over a second, as the younger Dukurs took this third gold medal in three races. The elder Dukurs takes silver again, while Olympic champion Alexander Tretiakov finished with a bronze medal in his first World Cup race of the season. Axel Jungk moved up a couple spots after the first heat into fourth, while Nikita Tregybov finished fifth.

The weather played a huge factor in the later runs: A combination of awful grooves at the top plus a steady rain in Run 1, the Altenberg track turned into a glorified water slide. As the second run came around, the track dried, but also slowed. German Killian von Schleintz moved up from 15th to ninth on the strength of better track, while teammate Christopher Grotheer, who started the second run later, dropped from fifth to 12th.

It was a tough day for the Americans, with Matt Antoine leading the way on awful track conditions in 15th place. Kyle Tress finished 20th, while Kyle Brown suffered from horrible start groove conditions going off last in Heat 1, finishing 28th.

The Canadians didn’t fair much better. Dave Greszczyszyn led the way in 13th, while Evan Neufeldt took 19th, and Barrett Martineau 21st. Dom Parsons finished 11th for Great Britain, while teammate Ed Smith fought injury and horrible track conditions to take 17th.

Results:

Pos	Name	Nation	Bib	Run 1	Run 2	Total
1	Martins Dukurs	LAT	5	58.01	59.24	1:57.25
2	Tomass Dukurs	LAT	4	58.83	59.52	1:58.35
3	Alexander Tretiakov	RUS	12	59.02	59.45	1:58.47
4	Axel Jungk	GER	8	59.46	59.04	1:58.50
5	Nikita Tregybov	RUS	13	59.14	59.44	1:58.58
6	Sergei Chudinov	RUS	16	59.65	59.50	1:59.15
7	Hiroatsu Takahashi	JPN	11	59.63	59.61	1:59.24
7	Matthias Guggenberger	AUT	3	59.23	60.01	1:59.24
9	Killian von Schleintz	GER	14	60.46	58.85	1:59.31
10	Sungbin Yun	KOR	15	60.30	59.17	1:59.47
11	Dom Parsons	GBR	2	59.70	59.92	1:59.62
12	Christopher Grotheer	GER	6	59.16	60.47	1:59.63
13	Dave Greszczyszyn	CAN	1	60.09	59.77	1:59.86
14	Mattia Gaspari	ITA	20	60.59	59.31	1:59.90
15	Matthew Antoine	USA	10	59.86	60.14	2:00.00
16	Raphael Maier	AUT	9	60.04	59.99	2:00.03
17	Ed Smith	GBR	17	60.84	59.30	2:00.14
18	Yuki Sasahara	JPN	22	61.40	59.68	2:01.08
19	Evan Neufeldt	CAN	18	61.38	59.92	2:01.30
20	Kyle Tress	USA	7	60.53	60.97	2:01.50
21	Barrett Martineau	CAN	19	61.64
22	Ronald Auderset	SUI	23	62.28
23	Giovanni Mulassano	ITA	24	62.35
24	John Farrow	AUS	21	62.46
25	Dorin Velicu	ROU	27	62.86
26	Ander Mirambell	ESP	26	63.23
27	Rhys Thornbury	NZL	25	63.24
28	Kyle Brown	USA	28	63.94