Tregubov second after two heats ahead of Tomass Dukurs
Whistler (RWH): Defending title holder Martins Dukurs of Latvia is on track to win his sixth Skeleton World Championship title half way through proceedings at the 2019 BMW IBSF World Championships.
At Whistler Sliding Center in Canada, the 2010 and 2014 Olympic silver medallist set a new track record (51.91 seconds) and currently holds a 0.37-second lead over Nikita Tregubov (RUS), who won the Olympic silver medal at PyeongChang in 2018. Tomass Dukurs (LAT, 0.48 seconds back) – the elder of the two Dukurs brothers – will start the final day on Friday (8 March, 9 am local time / 6 pm CET) in third place.
The overall winner of the BMW IBSF World Cup, Alexander Tretiakov of Russia, equalled his own Olympic starting record from the 2010 Winter Games (4.48 seconds) during the first heat. With two out of the four World Championship heats left to go, Tretiakov is currently in fourth place ahead of Christopher Grotheer (GER). The German athlete surprised onlookers by securing second place at the end of the first heat. The Olympic Champion Sungbin Yun of Korea finishes off the top six at the end of the first day of World Championship competition.
Three athletes making their World Championship début in Whistler are on course for a top-ten finish: the overall winner of the Intercontinental Cup Seunggi Jung of Korea in eighth, US athlete Austin Florian in ninth, followed by Junior World Champion Felix Keisinger (GER).
Further information including the World Championships results are available at ibsf.org. ©RWH2019
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