Janine Flock stays overnight in front of the two decisive races of the Olympic skeleton competition on a medal rank. The 28-year-old Tyrolean is in second place at half time in the ice channel in Pyeongchang/Alpensia, only two hundredths separate her from the German Jacqueline Lölling. The British Sochi Olympic champion Elizabeth Yarnold is third with a tenth of a second lag.
Saturday (12.20 a. m. CET) will be an extremely exciting decision, as Laura Deas, the fourth placed Briton, is only 0.17 seconds behind. Flock made two mistakes in the second run, but she made a good place. Yarnold could not confirm her track record from the first run (51,66 sec.) and slipped from the top to third place.
Unfortunately, I made the same mistake in the second run as in the final practice session,”said the ninth from Sochi. I let the sled go a little too much, but I was able to absorb the mistakes well and the time was halfway okay. But I’ll try to do better tomorrow,”Flock emphasized.
She was not nervous about her position on the medal rank, said Flock, but rather very focused. After a test, she decided to use the training skid in the race,”I felt more comfortable with it and so we prepared it for the race,”said Flock to the APA.
Flock was the third best time twice, World Cup winner Lölling was second and fourth. Canadian Elisabeth Vathje, the Tyrolean bob pilot Benjamin Maier’s fiancé, achieved the best time in the second run. She was eighth (+0.60).
According to Flocks, everything is still open:”It’s close to the front and back,”explained the former World Cup winner, naming the Germans, Brits and Canadians as rivals in the fight for the medals.”There’s still a lot to be done.”
In the evening, her partner Matthias Guggenberger, who has already finished his race, took care of the blade preparation in the apartment in the evening, and explained the athlete of the Innsbruck sled sports club:”I can go crazy and save energy.