PB for Salisbury in Lillehammer WC
Matt Weston was the top placed Brit in today’s Men’s Skeleton World Cup race in Lillehammer as team mate Jacob Salisbury set a personal best with a top ten finish.
World Champion Weston was eighth in the fifth World Cup competition of the season and the first in Norway for 20 years.
The 26-year-old, who remains third in the overall standings with three races remaining, clocked a combined time of 1 minute 43.27 seconds, climbing from 12th place after the first run to just four hundredths of a second off a wider podium place.
Weston finished 10th in Race 1 in Beijing before winning silver in La Plagne and then gold in Igls prior to just missing a medal in fourth spot in St Moritz a fortnight ago.
Salisbury only made his top-tier debut at the start of this campaign but he bettered his 12th-place finish in the season opener in Beijing by two spots this morning. The former swimmer came down in 1.43.39 via the second fastest start in Run 1 and the ninth quickest run in Heat 2.
Craig Thompson, who started the day sixth in the world rankings, finished 12th in a time of 1 minute 43.71 but still moved up a spot in the standings as a result of fellow Brit Marcus Wyatt’s misfortune. Wyatt, who won bronze in Igls and was third in last year’s Overall World Cup standings, missed out on a second heat after popping a spur in the opening run to finish 31st of 37 sleds.
Lillehammer hosted its first World Cup race for two decades
Reigning Olympic and Overall World Cup Champion, Christopher Grotheer, won gold to move ahead of previous points leader Seunggi Jung of South Korea at the top of the rankings. Axel Jungk and Felix Seibel made it a German clean sweep of the medals as they took silver and bronze respectively.
Amelia Coltman, Freya Tarbit and Tabby Stoecker, who won gold in La Plagne and bronze in Igls before Christmas, go for GB in the women’s event at 12pm GMT.
Bobsleigh then takes centre stage for the weekend, with monobob and 2-man action on Saturday and women’s and 4-man races on Sunday.
Did you know?
Lillehammer was the venue for the 1994 Olympic Winter Games but the Games didn’t feature men’s or women’s skeleton.
This week is the first time a World Cup skeleton event has been held in Lillehammer since the IBSF’s top-tier competition expanded to combine both bobsleigh and skeleton back in 2004/05.
