From Igls, AUT
(December 15, 2023) – Igls has been a happy hunting ground for Great Britain’s Matt Weston. Coming into Friday’s race he’d won six gold medals in his World Cup career, with a third of which had come in Igls. He once again showed his mastery of the track in Austria with yet another victory on the 1976 Olympic track.
Weston carried a slim .11 second lead over South Korea’s Seunggi Jung, the winner of the previous week’s race in La Plagne. On the second run Jung threw down the fastest start of the competition and backed it up with what was, to that point, the quickest slide of the race to take the lead.
That left Jung between Weston and gold. Weston’s start was .07 slower than Jung’s, and early on in the run Weston had fallen back behind the Korean slider. However Jung’s bottom part of his run was a little sloppy, and Weston’s was as clean as it needed to be. The Brit crossed the finish line with the fast run of the race, and a combined time .15 quicker than Jung’s for his first gold medal of the season and seventh of his World Cup career.
Jung took silver for the seventh medal of his World Cup career. He has yet to finish outside of the top four in three races this season.
Germany’s Felix Keisinger has been close a bunch since the 20202/2021 season but hadn’t been able to find his way onto a podium. He changed that with a bronze medal effort, his first medal since Sigulda in November of 2020.
Craig Thompson was the odd man out. The British slider finished the race in fourth place, only .05 off the podium. Olympic champion Christopher Grotheer finished fifth, his fifth straight top five finish in Igls.
The reigning world championship silver medalist Amedeo Bagnis moved up from seventh in the first heat to finish sixth, just .05 ahead of Germany’s Axel Jungk who fell to seventh.
Marcus Wyatt finished ninth in the previous race in Igls, and once again finished ninth to put three British sleds in the top ten. Jacob Salisbury rounded out a tremendous British effort in 14th.
Austin Florian was the top of the two Americans in the race. He had a messy first run despite a the fourth start of the heat. In the second heat he put down a start .09 quicker than the first and a downtime that was a half of a second faster. That was enough to move him from 14th to 12th, just .02 behind Samuel Maier in 11th. Teammate Dan Barefoot had a bumpy second run and fell from a tie for 19th to 22th.
Canada rolled out an inexperienced (at the World Cup level, anyway) team to Igls. Kyle Donsberger, the North American Cup runner up last season, finished in 28th, while teammate Troy Wilson couldn’t quite get going with his run and finished 33rd.
Three races are complete in the eight race IBSF World Cup season. Seunggi Jung leads in the season-long standings. He’s 18 points ahead of Christopher Grotheer, with Weston in third. Thompson and Wyatt sit fourth and fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Matt Weston | GBR | 10 | 4.86 | 4.84 | 52.56 | 52.28 | 1:44.84 |
| 2 | Seunggi Jung | KOR | 9 | 4.79 | 4.77 | 52.67 | 52.32 | 1:44.99 |
| 3 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 18 | 4.88 | 4.82 | 52.78 | 52.38 | 1:45.16 |
| 4 | Craig Thompson | GBR | 6 | 4.94 | 4.93 | 52.79 | 52.42 | 1:45.21 |
| 5 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 7 | 5.01 | 5.00 | 52.84 | 52.51 | 1:45.35 |
| 6 | Amedeo Bagnis | ITA | 4 | 4.86 | 4.81 | 52.89 | 52.49 | 1:45.38 |
| 7 | Alex Jungk | GER | 21 | 5.00 | 4.99 | 52.86 | 52.57 | 1:45.43 |
| 8 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 11 | 4.94 | 4.92 | 52.90 | 52.63 | 1:45.53 |
| 9 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 5 | 4.86 | 4.94 | 52.96 | 52.63 | 1:45.59 |
| 10 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 14 | 4.89 | 4.87 | 52.97 | 52.63 | 1:45.60 |
| 11 | Samuel Maier | AUT | 8 | 5.00 | 5.01 | 53.08 | 52.78 | 1:45.86 |
| 12 | Austin Florian | USA | 24 | 4.87 | 4.84 | 53.19 | 52.69 | 1:45.88 |
| 13 | Felix Seibel | GER | 20 | 5.12 | 5.09 | 53.06 | 52.94 | 1:46.00 |
| 14 | Jacob Salisbury | GBR | 17 | 4.87 | 4.87 | 53.16 | 52.87 | 1:46.03 |
| 15 | Jisoo Kim | KOR | 16 | 4.87 | 4.93 | 53.21 | 52.95 | 1:46.16 |
| 16 | Wengang Yan | CHN | 15 | 5.03 | 5.01 | 53.27 | 53.09 | 1:46.36 |
| 17 | Alexander Schlintner | AUT | 23 | 5.02 | 5.01 | 53.35 | 53.03 | 1:46.38 |
| 18 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 12 | 5.11 | 5.08 | 53.44 | 53.25 | 1:46.69 |
| 19 | Livio Summermatter | SUI | 30 | 4.95 | 4.94 | 53.50 | 53.31 | 1:46.81 |
| 20 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 13 | 5.18 | 5.15 | 53.57 | 53.26 | 1:46.83 |
| 21 | Manuel Schwärzer | ITA | 1 | 5.06 | 5.05 | 53.63 | 53.25 | 1:46.88 |
| 22 | Daniel Barefoot | USA | 26 | 5.07 | 5.10 | 53.50 | 53.50 | 1:47.00 |
| 23 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 19 | 5.13 | 5.12 | 53.65 | 53.48 | 1:47.13 |
| 24 | Florian Auer | AUT | 22 | 5.18 | 5.18 | 53.69 | 53.52 | 1:47.21 |
| 25 | Vinzenz Buff | SUI | 29 | 5.15 | 5.24 | 53.67 | 53.68 | 1:47.35 |
| 26 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 28 | 5.08 | 53.81 | |||
| 27 | Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 25 | 5.11 | 54.19 | |||
| 28 | Kyle Donsberger | CAN | 31 | 5.18 | 54.34 | |||
| 29 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 27 | 5.10 | 54.53 | |||
| 30 | Vladyslav Polyvach | POL | 3 | 5.26 | 54.77 | |||
| 31 | Yaroslav Lavreniuk | UKR | 33 | 5.36 | 55.19 | |||
| 32 | Troy Wilson | CAN | 32 | 5.12 | 55.29 | |||
| 33 | Chun-Hung Chiang | TPE | 2 | 5.33 | 55.52 |
