Bronze for Deas in Park City
Laura Deas continued British Skeleton’s stunning start to the season by winning World Cup bronze in the United States on Thursday evening.
Deas made it four medals in eight days for the team following gold for Marcus Wyatt, silver for Brogan Crowley and bronze for Matt Weston in Whistler last week.
The result was Deas’ best for almost four years, with her last World Cup medal coming in Calgary in February 2019, 12 months after she won Olympic bronze in PyeongChang.
The 34-year-old clocked a combined time of 1 minute 38.55 seconds to finish just three hundredths behind Germany’s reigning World Cup Champion Tina Hermann in second and 13 hundredths shy of race winner Mirela Rahneva in Park City.
“It was a brilliant feeling to be back on the podium after a long time away,” said Deas.
This feels like it’s been a long time coming. We’ve put in a lot of hard yards over the last few years to make this happen.
“I’m really happy with the way I pushed and I’m really pleased with the whole race today. There were some difficult weather conditions in Run 2, which made things even more challenging. It was great to be able to put down the quickest second run and climb a few spots when it mattered.”
Laura Deas is celebrating her best result since 2019
Deas began the new Olympic cycle with a 12th-place finish in Whistler a week ago but she was outstanding in the States as she produced the fastest time of Run 2 to move up from fifth at halfway in Utah.
She beat all three Olympic medalists from Beijing nine months ago and looked comfortable throughout despite not having raced in Park City for just over five years.
Deas was the fourth fastest starter in each heat, having been fourth and then eighth quickest off the top a week ago.
Crowley placed 13th in a time of 1 minute. Last week’s silver medalist sat 11th at halfway and appeared set to jump up the standings midway through Run 2 but lost time further down the track to drop back behind both Anna Fernstaedt and Kendall Wesenberg.
The 28-year-old did top the charts in terms of start times, though, backing up the second fastest start in Run 1 (4.91 seconds) with the quickest of the day in Run 2 (4.88).
