Bagnis Makes History With St. Moritz Victory

From St. Moritz, SUI

(January 12, 2024) – In the 100 year history of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation there’s been a lot of things that have happened. There’s been all sorts of nations atop the podium, there’s been a three-way tie, track records have come and gone, but never had an Italian man stood atop the podium in an IBSF World Cup race.

That is until Amedeo Bagnis came along.

In St. Moritz, where Bagnis was one year removed from winning an IBSF World Championships silver medal, Bagnis opened up a comical lead of over a half of a second over the reigning Olympic champion, Germany’s Christopher Grotheer. Only one other man was even within three quarters of a second of Bagnis, World Cup leader Seunggi Jung of Korea.

In the second heat Jung put down a quick and clean slide to take the lead. He held that lead only for about two minutes as Grotheer set the quick downtime of the second heat to take the lead from the Korean.

All Bagnis had to do to secure victory was make it down the Swiss track clean. His start time was the third quickest of the heat, and at no point did the Italian look like the pressure was on him as he cruised to a .52 second victory over Grotheer, with Jung third and Weston fourth as the only men within a second of Bagnis.

The gold for Bagnis was both his first and the first for Italian men’s skeleton in the IBSF World Cup. In 1948, Nino Bibbia had won gold for Italy in the Olympic Games, but never before had an Italian taken the top spot in a World Race.

Weston took fourth, .98 off the pace. China’s Zheng Yin moved up from 11th in the first heat to finish fifth, while Mattia Gaspari finished out the best ever day for Italian skeleton with a sixth place finish, his career best in the World Cup.

Behind Weston, the remainder of the British squad couldn’t quite find the speed that they’ve enjoyed for most of the season. Marcus Wyatt finished 12th, while Craig Thompson had a bumpy second run to fall from sixth to 13th. Jacob Salisbury fell from 20th to 24th after his second run.

Daniel Barefoot led the way for the United States with a 16th place run, back from 14th after the first heat. Teammate  Austin Florian had a competitive first run going in the first heat until he hit the wall on the exit of the Horseshoe curve. His second run showed what was in that first run as he had the 12th quickest run and moved up from 25th to 20th

Hunter Williams rounded out the American effort in 29th.

The Canadian men struggled in St. Moritz. Blake Enzie was tied for 26th as the first man out of the second heat, while David Park finished tied for 31st with Ghana’s Akwasi Frimpong. It was Park’s first ever trip to the Swiss track.

At the halfway point of the 2023/2024 IBSF World Cup season, Seunggi Jung leads Christopher Grother by 8 points in the season standings. Matt Weston, Amdedeo Bagnis, and Marcus Wyatt round out the top five.

Results: