From Pyeongchang, KOR
(November 17, 2024) – Christopher Grotheer continued a streak of wins in Pyeongchang with his second gold medal in World Cup action, coming from behind to win.
Grotheer entered the second heat of competition in third place, behind Great Britain’s Marcus Wyatt and Austria’s Samuel Maier. His first effort had been relatively clean and quick, but his second slide was nearly flawless as he set the quick time of the competition to put the pressure on the sliders ahead of him.
Maier was next up and was looking for his first World Cup medal outside of Austria. His second effort looked good early, but bumpy later down the track, and the Austrian was unable to find the speed he had in the first heat. He crossed the line in third place with Wyatt still to go.
That left Marcus Wyatt between Grotheer and another gold medal. Wyatt, looking for his second career gold medal, had a big push off the top and held the lead early. His run was just a little sloppier than Grotheer’s, but well past midway through the run Wyatt still had the advantage.
The speed, though, was gone. and the final uphill portion of the track got the Brit, as he crossed the line just .06 behind Grotheer for his second straight silver medal, with Grotheer taking gold.
The win for Grotheer was actually his fourth this season, with two wins in the Asian Cup coming before these two wins in the World Cup.
For Wyatt, the silver medal was the fifth of his career and ninth medal overall.
The podium remained unchanged from the day prior, with Matt Weston taking home another bronze. Weston entered the second heat in tenth place, but a beauty of a second effort catapulted him up the finishing order into third place.
Maier took fourth, while not the medal he wanted still a career-best outside of Igls. Jisoo Kim took fifth on his home ice, while Craig Thompson put all three British sleds in the top six with a sixth place finish.
Austin Florian led the way for the United States, tied with Ukrain’s Vladyslav Heraskevych, with an 11th place finish on the strength of two strong starts. Dan Barefoot helped put two Team USA sleds in the top 25 with a 21st place effort, up from 24th in the first heat. Hunter Williams rounded out the American effort in 29th.
Kyle Donsberger was the lone Canadian in the field after Ryan Kuehn was a late scratch. He finished 30th.
Nick Timmings put together two strong runs for Australia with a 20th finish, while Jonathan Yaw finished 31st for Malaysia.
After two races on the World Cup season, Grotheer, Wyatt, and Weston sit one-two-three after duplicate podiums. Samy Maier is fourth, Jisoo Kim fifth and Rasmus Johansen sixth.
The IBSF World Cup tour heads to Yanqing for the third race of the men’s skeleton season on November 23.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 3 | 4.80 | 4.81 | 51.53 | 51.28 | 1:42.81 |
| 2 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 10 | 4.67 | 4.63 | 51.29 | 51.58 | 1:42.87 |
| 3 | Matt Weston | GBR | 2 | 4.67 | 4.69 | 51.77 | 51.54 | 1:43.31 |
| 4 | Samuel Maier | AUT | 5 | 4.86 | 4.85 | 51.41 | 51.97 | 1:43.38 |
| 5 | Jisoo Kim | KOR | 4 | 4.65 | 4.68 | 51.76 | 51.64 | 1:43.40 |
| 6 | Craig Thompson | GBR | 19 | 4.68 | 4.72 | 51.75 | 51.74 | 1:43.49 |
| 7 | Qinwei Lin | CHN | 18 | 4.60 | 4.61 | 51.72 | 51.84 | 1:43.56 |
| 8 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 1 | 4.78 | 4.74 | 52.02 | 51.77 | 1:43.79 |
| 8 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 6 | 4.81 | 4.78 | 51.75 | 52.04 | 1:43.79 |
| 10 | Lukas Nydegger | GER | 13 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 52.03 | 51.89 | 1:43.92 |
| 11 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 7 | 4.82 | 4.85 | 51.98 | 51.95 | 1:43.93 |
| 11 | Austin Florian | USA | 16 | 4.65 | 4.70 | 51.95 | 51.98 | 1:43.93 |
| 13 | Amedeo Bagnis | ITA | 15 | 4.66 | 4.64 | 51.64 | 52.38 | 1:44.02 |
| 14 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 14 | 4.76 | 4.74 | 51.94 | 52.09 | 1:44.03 |
| 15 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 11 | 4.89 | 4.93 | 51.66 | 52.47 | 1:44.13 |
| 16 | Axel Jungk | GER | 9 | 4.82 | 4.85 | 52.19 | 52.06 | 1:44.25 |
| 17 | Giovanni Marchetti | ITA | 20 | 4.79 | 4.80 | 52.19 | 52.23 | 1:44.42 |
| 18 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 8 | 4.80 | 4.78 | 52.35 | 52.14 | 1:44.49 |
| 19 | Haifeng Zhu | CHN | 12 | 4.79 | 4.81 | 52.18 | 52.49 | 1:44.67 |
| 20 | Nicholas Timmings | AUS | 33 | 4.93 | 4.90 | 52.35 | 52.65 | 1:45.00 |
| 21 | Daniel Barefoot | USA | 31 | 4.84 | 4.84 | 52.96 | 52.31 | 1:45.27 |
| 22 | Vinzenz Buff | SUI | 17 | 4.95 | 5.00 | 52.85 | 52.56 | 1:45.41 |
| 23 | Hyungjun Sim | KOR | 32 | 4.73 | 4.75 | 52.78 | 52.69 | 1:45.47 |
| 24 | Yaroslav Lavreniuk | UKR | 24 | 5.04 | 4.96 | 52.69 | 52.82 | 1:45.51 |
| 25 | Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 25 | 4.86 | 4.92 | 53.37 | 53.02 | 1:46.39 |
| 26 | Livio Summermatter | SUI | 21 | 4.81 | 53.45 | |||
| 27 | Peter Makrides | AUS | 30 | 4.96 | 53.76 | |||
| 28 | Colin Freeling | BEL | 23 | 5.17 | 53.88 | |||
| 29 | Hunter Williams | USA | 22 | 4.79 | 53.92 | |||
| 30 | Kyle Donsberger | CAN | 26 | 4.98 | 54.45 | |||
| 31 | Jonathan Yaw | MAS | 34 | 5.00 | 55.13 | |||
| 32 | Jared Firestone | ISR | 29 | 5.13 | 59.22 | |||
| DNS | Ryan Kuehn | CAN | 27 | DNS | ||||
| DNS | Alexander Schlintner | AUT | 28 | DNS |
