From Whistler, CAN
(November 28, 2024) – Austria’s Florian Auer slid to a decisive victory in Whistler on Thursday, beating the field by well over a second on his way to gold.
Auer was the first slider off the top in the men’s North American Cup skeleton season, and set a time that was .63 ahead of Australia’s Nick Timmings, with nobody else within a full second of the Austrian.
In the second heat it was more of the same, with Auer just a tick slower on his second effort but still well ahead of anyone else as he won gold by 1.49 seconds over Timmings.
Auer has three North American Cup starts to his name, with all three in Whistler. In those races he’s won the last two, plus one bronze medal..
Timmings had a second run that wasn’t quite as smoot as his first, but was still enough to hold onto silver ahead of Canada’s Josip Brusic, who took bronze.
Timmings’ silver was his first career medal in Whistler, while Brusic’s bronze medal was the first of his career in NAC action.
Israel’s Jared Firestone beat out Andrew Whittier-Neises for fifth place, while Jordan Rwiyamilira finished sixth for Canada.
Canada placed five of their six sliders in the top ten. Jacob Coleman, Sebastien Regnier, and Marc-Antoine Vigneault finished eighth through tenth, while Brayden Posyluzny finished 13th to round out the Canadian effort.
Dylan Burris finished 12th in his second career NAC start, while Tyler Lutz and Lukas Kissell finished 14th and 15th in their first career races.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Finish |
| 1 | Florian Auer | AUT | 1 | 4.77 | 4.77 | 53.32 | 53.72 | 1:47.04 |
| 2 | Nicholas Timmings | AUS | 3 | 4.77 | 4.88 | 53.95 | 54.58 | 1:48.53 |
| 3 | Josip Brusic | CAN | 7 | 4.61 | 4.61 | 54.43 | 54.31 | 1:48.74 |
| 4 | Jared Firestone | ISR | 10 | 4.95 | 4.92 | 54.99 | 54.55 | 1:49.54 |
| 5 | Andrew Whittier-Neises | USA | 6 | 4.74 | 4.70 | 54.97 | 55.02 | 1:49.99 |
| 6 | Jordan Rwiyamilira | CAN | 4 | 4.72 | 4.73 | 55.14 | 55.63 | 1:50.77 |
| 7 | Jeff Bauer | LUX | 15 | 5.01 | 5.00 | 55.25 | 56.00 | 1:51.25 |
| 8 | Jacob Coleman | CAN | 5 | 5.06 | 5.11 | 56.12 | 55.97 | 1:52.09 |
| 9 | Sebastian Regnier | CAN | 9 | 4.56 | 4.59 | 56.30 | 56.45 | 1:52.75 |
| 10 | Marc-Antoine Vigneault | CAN | 8 | 4.95 | 4.92 | 55.77 | 57.33 | 1:53.10 |
| 11 | Oren Milstein | ISR | 2 | 5.08 | 5.01 | 56.70 | 56.48 | 1:53.18 |
| 12 | Dyla Burris | USA | 11 | 4.86 | 4.80 | 56.73 | 56.76 | 1:53.49 |
| 13 | Brayden Posyluzny | CAN | 14 | 4.81 | 4.76 | 57.54 | 57.19 | 1:54.73 |
| 14 | Tyler Lutz | USA | 12 | 5.07 | 4.87 | 58.30 | 57.44 | 1:55.74 |
| 15 | Lukas Kissell | USA | 13 | 5.11 | 5.03 | 60.34 | 57.23 | 1:57.57 |