From Altenberg, GER
(December 6, 2024) – In women’s skeleton, the 2024/2025 World Cup season has seen only first-time World Cup winners. Four races, four winners.
On the men’s side of things, there has only been Christopher Grotheer.
That trend continued on Friday, as the German champion once again took gold, and for the third time on the season it was ahead of a pair of Great Britain’s best.
Grotheer led Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt by .13 and .18 respectively after the first heat. Grotheer had been out-started by both men but rallied with a nearly flawless slide to hold onto the lead from the first starting position.
Of the three gold medal contenders, Wyatt was up first. His push was a hundredth slower, but his second slide was even better than his first and enough to take the lead from hometown hero Axel Jungk.
Weston was next. Off the top he was .02 quicker than his first effort, but his second slide wasn’t quite as good as Wyatt’s. However, he had just enough in the bank from his first run to hold off his teammate by .01 as he slid into the lead with Grotheer to go.
Grotheer had won the first three races by narrowing margins. In Pyeongchang the margin of victory had been .15 and .06, and then in Pyeongchang just .01 over Weston. His second slide wasn’t perfect, and it was slower than both Wyatt and Weston’s efforts, but it was just enough to hold off Weston by just .02, with Wyatt .04 back in third.
The win for Grotheer was his tenth on the World Cup circuit in men’s skeleton and 25th medal overall in the discipline.
For Weston and Wyatt, their medals were their fourth and third on the season, respectively.
The first man off the podium was Jungk, who scored his first top six of the season with a fourth place effort, .27 off of the podium. Teammate Lukas Nydegger scored his first top five of the season to help put three German sleds in the top five.
Austin Florian’s home track is Lake Placid, but in Europe it might as well be Altenberg. He put together a pair of clean runs for another top six with a sixth place effort, his fourth top ten on the Saxon track.
Vladyslav Heraskevych just missed out on a top six with a seventh place effort. That was still good enough for a career-best in Altenberg.
For the fourth time in as many races to start the season, Dan Barefoot finished 21st for the United States. Teammate Hunter Williams finished 30th.
Kyle Donsberger finished 29th for Canada, four spots ahead of teammate Jordan Rwiyamilira in 33rd.
Craig Thompson finished 15th to round out the British effort.
Ukraine’s Yaroslav Lavreniuk was disqualified after not crossing the start line before the start clock hit zero.
After four races on the IBSF World Cup skeleton calendar, Grotheer leads with a perfect 900 points. Matt Weston sits second, 80 points behind Grotheer and just eight points ahead of Marcus Wyatt. Samy Maier and Vladyslav Heraskevych round out the top five at the halfway point of the season.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 1 | 5.18 | 5.12 | 56.70 | 56.92 | 1:53.62 |
| 2 | Matt Weston | GBR | 3 | 4.94 | 4.92 | 56.83 | 56.81 | 1:53.65 |
| 3 | Marcus Wyatt | GBR | 5 | 4.93 | 4.94 | 56.88 | 56.78 | 1:53.66 |
| 4 | Axel Jungk | GER | 15 | 5.10 | 5.11 | 57.00 | 56.93 | 1:53.93 |
| 5 | Lukas Nydegger | GER | 19 | 5.14 | 5.15 | 57.03 | 56.96 | 1:53.99 |
| 6 | Austin Florian | USA | 18 | 4.93 | 4.90 | 56.98 | 57.10 | 1:54.08 |
| 7 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 2 | 5.20 | 5.13 | 57.06 | 57.08 | 1:54.14 |
| 8 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 4 | 5.02 | 5.01 | 57.15 | 57.06 | 1:54.21 |
| 9 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 9 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 57.21 | 57.06 | 1:54.27 |
| 10 | Samuel Maier | AUT | 6 | 5.09 | 5.14 | 57.27 | 57.17 | 1:54.44 |
| 11 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 11 | 5.00 | 4.99 | 57.47 | 57.00 | 1:54.47 |
| 12 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 8 | 5.06 | 5.05 | 57.34 | 57.19 | 1:54.53 |
| 13 | Mattia Gaspari | ITA | 12 | 5.21 | 5.22 | 57.51 | 57.37 | 1:54.88 |
| 14 | Vinzenz Buff | SUI | 13 | 5.29 | 5.28 | 57.70 | 57.55 | 1:55.25 |
| 15 | Craig Thompson | GBR | 14 | 4.97 | 5.03 | 57.75 | 57.57 | 1:55.32 |
| 16 | Alexander Schlintner | AUT | 26 | 5.13 | 5.16 | 57.85 | 57.50 | 1:55.35 |
| 17 | Haifeng Zhu | CHN | 16 | 5.10 | 5.08 | 57.74 | 57.63 | 1:55.37 |
| 18 | Amedeo Bagnis | ITA | 20 | 4.88 | 4.97 | 58.33 | 57.21 | 1:55.54 |
| 19 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 33 | 5.17 | 5.16 | 58.07 | 57.49 | 1:55.56 |
| 20 | Qinwei Lin | CHN | 7 | 4.85 | 4.89 | 57.91 | 57.97 | 1:55.88 |
| 21 | Daniel Barefoot | USA | 22 | 5.16 | 5.21 | 58.21 | 57.95 | 1:56.16 |
| 22 | Hyungjun Sim | KOR | 24 | 5.06 | 5.05 | 58.58 | 57.98 | 1:56.56 |
| 23 | Livio Summermatter | SUI | 31 | 5.04 | 5.07 | 58.67 | 58.52 | 1:57.19 |
| 24 | Jisoo Kim | KOR | 10 | 4.94 | 5.00 | 58.29 | 58.99 | 1:57.28 |
| 25 | Colin Freeling | BEL | 23 | 5.44 | 59.03 | |||
| 26 | Timon Drahonovsky | CZE | 25 | 5.31 | 59.21 | |||
| 27 | Giovanni Marchetti | ITA | 17 | 5.04 | 59.24 | |||
| 28 | Kyle Donsberger | CAN | 28 | 5.36 | 59.33 | |||
| 29 | Hunter Williams | USA | 21 | 5.18 | 59.40 | |||
| 30 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 32 | 5.24 | 60.00 | |||
| 31 | Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 27 | 5.24 | 60.29 | |||
| 32 | Jordan Rwiyamilira | CAN | 30 | 5.15 | 60.59 | |||
| DSQ | Yaroslav Lavreniuk | UKR | 29 | 5.26 | 5.30 | 58.71 | DSQ |