Winter Sports: Flock wins at the Skeleton World Cup season opener

Skeleton Vice European Champion Janine Flock started into the Olympic season on Thursday with her fourth World Cup victory. The Tyrolean won the season opener in Lake Placid and thus repeated her last year’s victory on the 1932 and 1980 Olympic track. She laid the foundation stone for this with a track record of 54.69 seconds in the first run. It thus remained 15/100 below its 2016 mark.

In the second run, Flock, who won her first two World Cup victories in St. Gallen, was enough. Moritz (2015 and 2016), the ninth-best time to bring success to a standstill. The Canadian Elisabeth Vathje (+0.26 sec.) and the British Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold (0.33) landed on the other podium places.

After winning the previous year’s race with a track record of 54.84, Flock had been “brutally hot on the track” and let it really shred in the first run. The difficult track in the US state of New York is the sports soldier from Rum.

“It’s brutally technical, fast and uneven. Things are going well. You have to get really stuck on the sled. If you lose the move and the position, it hurls you through and it’s hard to find your way back into the rhythm,”Flock describes the characteristic of the ice channel in Lake Placid.

Clemens Berauer, former Vice World Champion, will be supported by Clemens Berauer, a technician, at the three overseas races – next week in Park City and the next but one in Whistler – with great support from Clemens. He prepares the sled in tipping order, carries out material checks after each training session, checks every screw and setting, helps with administrative tasks such as material analysis and writing test protocols and, and, and…”, Flock emphasized the great help that her rider is able to provide.