Men add silver & bronze to women’s gold
Marcus Wyatt and Matt Weston made it a full set of World Cup medals for Great Britain in South Korea on Saturday as they won silver and bronze after Amelia Coltman claimed gold a few hours earlier.
Wyatt and Weston ensured GB ended Day 1 of the World Cup season with a hat trick of medals in PyeongChang - just as they did when the sport’s top athletes were last in South Korea for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
GB kicked off the campaign with a surprise gold in the women’s race for Coltman and then came agonisingly close to matching that in the men’s competition as Wyatt missed top spot by just 0.15 seconds.
Only reigning Olympic Champion Christopher Grotheer finished ahead of Wyatt and Weston in a 34-strong line up, with Wyatt starting the season the same way he ended the last one when he won silver in Lake Placid in March.
Wyatt moved from second after the first run to lead with only Grotheer to go in Run 2 and it looked as though gold might be on the cards before the German clawed back his advantage after initially slipping behind the Brit early in his final run.
Neither GB men’s medalist had raced in PyeongChang prior to this month but both started the season strongly despite their inexperience on a technically demanding track.
European Champion Wyatt finished in a time of 1 minute 46.47 seconds, with reigning Overall World cup winner Weston 0.48 seconds back after jumping up from 10th spot at the halfway mark. Team-mate Craig Thompson placed 13th.
“It’s been a really good day for the team on a track where we’ve got very limited experience amongst the group,” said the BBSA’s Executive Performance Director, Natalie Dunman, who saw Freya Tarbit finish fourth behind Coltman earlier in the day.
To come away with three medals and a fourth is a really good marker for the first race of the season, particularly when we were focussed on progression as much performance this week.
“They were both pretty crazy races but we put down really good performances, too. It’s easy to forget just how difficult it is to win three medals in a day at this level so we should be really proud of that achievement.
“It’s a good start and now we look to kick on again tomorrow.”
Race 2 of the World Cup season takes place at the same venue tomorrow.
The women’s competition stats at 7am GMT, with the men following at 11am.
The circuit then heads to Beijing, China (the home of the last Olympic Winter Games in 2022), before heading back to Europe for two more races before Christmas.
