Skeleton: Grotheer misses podium extremely thin

The German skeletonis have just missed a podium finish at the third World Cup stage of the Olympic Winter in Whistler. In South Korean Yun Sung-bin’s superior second win of the season, Christopher Grotheer and Alexander Gassner (Winterberg) from Oberhof finished fourth and fifth.

Vice World Champion Axel Jungk (Oberbärenburg) was disappointed after missing the first round with a ninth place.

At the demanding Olympic track in Canada, Grotheer caught two almost flawless runs, only 0.04 seconds were missing for the 25-year-old’s third World Cup run of his career. Gassner, too, was only 0.14 seconds behind third place behind Sung-bin and Nikita Tregubow (RUS) behind Latvian Tomass Dukurs.

Jungk had a frightening second when he almost completely missed his sled at the start of the first run and scolded the ice chute at the finish. With the sixth best time in the second run, the third of the last World Cup in Park City was able to make up for some of the lost time.

Alexander Tretyakov was not in Whistler. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had ruled out the 32-year-old from the Olympic Games for the rest of his life last Wednesday, like three other Russian skeletonis, because of their involvement in the state doping scandal, and deprived Tretyakov of the Olympic victory of 2014.

On Thursday, the Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Federation IBSF reacted with the temporary suspension of Tretyakov and his fellow countrymen. The IBSF wants to hear the athletes next week.