Hat-trick of medals to end EC season

British Skeleton ended the Europa cup season with a trio of medals from three different athletes across a double race weekend in Igls, Austria.

Laurence Bostock, Issy Fassnidge and Ashlyn Bland all won bronze on either Friday or Saturday in the final two EC competitions of the campaign.

Bostock claimed a third EC medal of the season on Friday after silvers in Altenberg and Lillehammer in December and January respectively. The 24-year-old’s fifth-place finish in Saturday’s final race was his seventh top-six spot in eight races and it left him in the same position in the overall standings.

Friday’s bronze was a sixth international medal of Bostock’s career but Fassnidge and Bland were tasting EC medal success for the very first time in their first full season of competition. 

Fassnidge won U20 Junior European Championship bronze in February 2023 and again in December last year but her previous EC best before Friday’s third-place was seventh in Norway last month. Friday’s race was reduced from two runs to one due to weather, with the now 21-year-old only beaten by a pair of German sliders.

Bland finished fifth in Friday’s competition but jumped up two spots on Saturday in a two-heat race featuring 25 sliders. The 24-year-old finished the season as the highest-place non-German in the overall standings in sixth position as a result. Fassnidge, who missed two of the eight races placed 10^th overall.

Kane Densley placed ninth and 10^th this weekend to finish 11^th in the overall standings, with Patrick Atkin 17^thoverall after coming 22^nd and 13^th on Friday and Saturday.