Grotheer Wins Winterberg Gold, Takes World Cup Lead

From Winterberg, GER

(January 6, 2023) – The track in Winterberg, as it tends to be from time to time, was a little warm, a little wet, and not overly fast. But it put on another good race, as Germany’s Christopher Grotheer led a German one-two finish to kick off the 2023 portion of the 2022/2023 IBSF World Cup skeleton season.

Grotheer entered the second heat as part of a three-way tie for second with teammate Axel Jungk and China’s Wengang Yan. Leading the race to that point was World Cup leader Seunggi Jung, who held a .06 second advantage going into the second heat.

Of the gold medal contenders, it was Grotheer who went first. The Olympic champion was one of the few men to start quicker in his second run as he put down a relatively blistering time to put the pressure on the men around him. Jungk was next, and while an early skid by Jungk put him out of contention for gold, he was able to stay ahead of Great Britain’s Matt Weston by .01 with two sleds to go.

China’s Wengang Yan also made an early mistake that he couldn’t overcome, and that was enough to drop him down the order into a tie with South Korea’s Jisoo Kim, enough for a top ten but well out of the medals.

It had been 14 years since a German man had stood atop the podium in Winterberg, and all that stood between Grotheer and history was Jung, who’d been consistent all season thus far. Jung, however, made a similar mistake to Jungk off the top, and was never able to recover. Jung not only slid out of the medals, but all the way out of the top ten, eventually landing in 13th place with the slowest second run speed of the event.

The gold for Grotheer was his fourth in World Cup competition. He became the first German men’s skeleton athlete to win gold since Florian Grassl in the 2008/2009 World Cup season. Jungk’s silver was his fourth silver in Winterberg in his last five starts. He’s never finished out of the top six in eight Winterberg starts.

Great Britain’s great 2022/2023 season continued as Matt Weston finished third for his third medal in four races. He entered the heat in seventh place, one spot ahead of teammate Marcus Wyatt, who moved up from eighth to fourth place.

Yan and Kim finished tied for fifth.

The Untied States’ Austin Florian entered the second heat of competition in 12th, just behind Austria’s Florian Auer. His second run was on a slowing track, but was quick enough to move up a spot to ninth, which was a personal best in Europe and his third top ten finish this season. Teammate Andrew Blaser put down a smooth second run, quicker than the first, to move up from 19th to 17th in the second heat. The 17th place finish for Blaser was also his career-best World Cup finish in Europe.

Craig Thompson finished out another strong showing for Great Britain with a tenth place finish in his first World Cup start of the season.

Blake Enzie finished 18th in his second career World Cup start in Winterberg to lead Canada. Evan Neufeldt was over .3 quicker in his second run on his way to a 20th place finish.

On the strength of his Winterberg gold medal, Christopher Grotheer took over the World Cup standings at the halfwady point of the season. His lead is 35 points over Marcus Wyatt, with Axel Jungk third. After a disasterous second run, Seunggi Jung fell to fourth overall.

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