From Yanqing, CHN
(October 25, 2021) – Germany’s Alexander Gassner picked up where he left off at the end of the 2020/2021 season, winning gold in the men’s skeleton test event at the 2022 Olympic sliding track in Yanqing.
Gassner, who won five medals at the top level of men’s skeleton in the 2020/2021 season (including bronze at the World Championships in Altenberg) had the fastest time in both heats on his way to a .39 second victory over Great Britain’s Marcus Wyatt.
Gassner had been quick throughout the weeks of training on the Olympic track, and backed that up with two of the three fastest runs of the event.
Wyatt scored the second quickest time in the first heat, and while his fourth run was a tick slower, it was still enough to fend off Germany’s Axel Jungk by .05 to hang on to the silver medal.
Jungk finished with a bronze, .06 ahead of teammate and two-time World Champion Christopher Grotheer.
Russia’s Nikita Tregubov and Latvia’s Tomass Dukurs rounded out the top six.
Behind Marcus Wyatt’s strong effort, Craig Thompson moved up to 17th from 20th after the first run, while Matt Weston finished 19th for the British team.
Canada’s Blake Enzie and Kevin Boyer finished 23rd and 24th respectively for Canada, while the United States’ Austin Florian finished 16th. Teammate and three-time Olympian John Daly did not take a second run and finished with a DNF.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Alexander Gassner | GER | 5 | 4.81 | 4.83 | 61.52 | 61.74 | 2:03.26 |
| 2 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 10 | 4.69 | 4.67 | 61.66 | 61.99 | 2:03.65 |
| 3 | Axel Jungk | GER | 9 | 4.75 | 4.75 | 61.81 | 61.89 | 2:03.70 |
| 4 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 14 | 4.78 | 4.76 | 61.91 | 61.85 | 2:03.76 |
| 5 | Nikita Tregubov | RUS | 12 | 4.73 | 4.73 | 61.82 | 62.12 | 2:03.94 |
| 6 | Tomass Dukurs | LAT | 4 | 4.85 | 4.85 | 62.03 | 62.31 | 2:04.34 |
| 7 | Jisoo Kim | KOR | 7 | 4.67 | 4.65 | 62.03 | 62.44 | 2:04.47 |
| 8 | Martins Dukurs | LAT | 8 | 5.74 | 4.77 | 62.04 | 62.44 | 2:04.48 |
| 9 | Samuel Maier | AUT | 18 | 4.89 | 4.88 | 62.38 | 62.17 | 2:04.55 |
| 10 | Amedeo Bagnis | ITA | 17 | 4.74 | 4.77 | 62.16 | 62.52 | 2:04.68 |
| 11 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 23 | 4.91 | 4.92 | 62.37 | 62.61 | 2:04.98 |
| 12 | Vladislav Semenov | RUS | 25 | 4.74 | 4.72 | 63.02 | 61.99 | 2:05.01 |
| 13 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 15 | 4.88 | 4.84 | 62.41 | 62.69 | 2:05.10 |
| 14 | Ronald Auderset | SUI | 1 | 4.76 | 4.83 | 62.42 | 63.07 | 2:05.49 |
| 15 | Seunggi Jung | KOR | 13 | 4.67 | 4.64 | 62.43 | 63.19 | 2:05.62 |
| 16 | Austin Florian | USA | 19 | 4.68 | 4.70 | 62.95 | 63.22 | 2:06.17 |
| 17 | Craig Thompson | GBR | 16 | 4.68 | 4.73 | 63.34 | 63.06 | 2:06.40 |
| 18 | Alexander Tretiakov | RUS | 6 | 4.70 | 4.70 | 64.33 | 62.16 | 2:06.49 |
| 19 | Matt Weston | GBR | 24 | 4.72 | 4.68 | 63.20 | 63.50 | 2:06.70 |
| 20 | Mihail Enache | ROU | 26 | 4.87 | 4.84 | 63.09 | 63.69 | 2:06.78 |
| 21 | Nathan Crumpton | ASA | 21 | 4.86 | 4.85 | 63.60 | 63.22 | 2:06.82 |
| 22 | Sungbin Yun | KOR | 11 | 4.72 | 4.75 | 63.50 | 63.74 | 2:07.24 |
| 23 | Blake Enzie | CAN | 3 | 4.83 | 4.87 | 62.94 | 64.35 | 2:07.29 |
| 24 | Kevin Boyer | CAN | 22 | 4.86 | 4.93 | 63.66 | 63.65 | 2:07.31 |
| 25 | Florian Auer | AUT | 20 | 4.90 | 4.93 | 64.09 | 63.39 | 2:07.48 |
| 26 | Rin Kinoshita | JPN | 28 | 4.73 | 4.70 | 64.07 | 64.49 | 2:08.56 |
| 27 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 27 | 4.93 | 4.95 | 64.54 | 64.18 | 2:08.72 |
| 28 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 29 | 4.94 | 4.94 | 64.00 | 64.73 | 2:08.73 |
| 29 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 2 | 4.96 | 4.94 | 64.24 | 64.92 | 2:09.16 |
| DNS | John Daly | USA | 30 | 4.87 | 4.87 | 65.89 | DNS |
