Deas sixth in Sigulda
Laura Deas started the new skeleton season with her best finish for more than a year-and-a-half.
The 32-year-old, who won bronze at the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang just under three years ago, was sixth in Sigulda on Friday morning.
Deas clocked a combined time of 1 minute 45.52 seconds to secure a wider podium place and her highest finish since winning World cup bronze in Calgary in February 2019.
Deas sat fourth at halfway, just two hundredths of a second behind home favourite Endija Terauda in the last of the medal positions, but a slightly slower second run saw her miss out on what would have been a sixth World Cup medal of her career.
Janine Flock, the Austrian athlete who Deas pipped to Olympic bronze in South Korea, took gold this time around, with Kimberley Bos of the Netherlands securing silver and Terauda beating Anna Fernstaedt to the last of the medals by 0.01 seconds.
2016 Youth Olympic Champion Ashleigh Pittaway placed 12th in Sigulda in a time of 1 minute 46.46 seconds, while fellow Brit Amelia Coltman finished 14th on her World Cup debut, 25 hundredths further back.
Pittaway, who made her World Cup debut as a 15-year-old in 2016 but had only raced three times on the top circuit since December 2017, went three quarters of a second faster in her second run compared to her first effort as she jumped up three spots in the final standings.
Coltman only made her international bow in December of last year but won the overall Europa Cup title at the first time of asking. The 24-year-old former badminton and tennis player came into this season’s opener with just nine international races under her belt but didn’t look out of place on the big stage.
The men’s skeleton race takes place at 1pm GMT today, with Craig Thompson, Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt going for GB in Sigulda.
The women race again at the same venue next Friday, November 27th, before the World Cup circuit takes a week-long break prior to heading to Igls in Austria.
