Olympic Champion Yun in second ahead of defending World Cup title holder Tretiakov
Innsbruck (RWH): Just like the nine World Cup seasons before it, the 2020 men’s skeleton race in Innsbruck was won by Martins Dukurs (LAT). For the tenth year in a row since 2010, the six-time World Champion stood atop the BMW IBSF World Cup podium at the Austrian track. The win also marked World Cup victory number 52 for Dukurs, who has won the overall World Cup standings nine times in total.
The Olympic Champion Sungbin Yun (KOR) finished second in Innsbruck (0.42 seconds back) ahead of the defending World Cup title holder Alexander Tretiakov (RUS) (0.44 seconds back).
After recording the best start time in heat one, Marcus Wyatt started heat two in third place. However, he ended up finishing in fourth, only just missing out on his first World Cup podium place. Nevertheless, fourth place is still the Brit’s best World Cup result to date, while his team-mate Craig Thompson (GBR) also celebrated the same achievement in sixth place. In his six World Cup races prior to Innsbruck, Thompson’s best result had been 16th place, which he achieved in Lake Placid (USA) in February 2019.
Because as many as three athletes managed to tie in 20th place during the first heat in Innsbruck, a total of 22 skeleton athletes were entitled to compete in the second heat at the World Cup race.
After his first victory of the season, Martins Dukurs (LAT, 1047 points) has extended his lead over Alexander Tretiakov (RUS) from four to 29 points in the overall standings for the 2019/2020 BMW IBSF World Cup. Sungbin Yun (KOR, 979) will begin the sixth race in third place overall.
Further information, the World Cup results and the latest overall standings are available at ibsf.org. ©RWH2020
