From Altenberg, GER
(December 6, 2024) – Great Britain’s Tabitha Stoecker and Marcus Wyatt held off a pair of quick Americans and the 2023 Skeleton Mixed Team world champions to take the first gold of the season for either athlete.
The race began with Spain’s Ana Torres Quevedo and Adrian Rodriguez kicking things off. From there the lead was passed through the running order of the field, with USA-2, Austria (tied with Switzerland-1), and previous season bronze medalists Czechia taking turns in the leader’s box.
The United States’ USA-1 team of Sara Roderick and Austin Florian then took the lead from the eighth starting spot. Both Roderick and Florian had quick starts on top of a decent reaction time, with Roderick setting the fourth quickest start for the women and Florian out-starting everyone on the men’s side. That plus a pair of quality slides left the American duo in the lead as the second Italian team, both Chinese teams and the Germany-2 team of Hannah Neise and Axel Jungk all failed to match their time.
The American lead held until Stoecker and Wyatt took their turn on the Altenberg track. Stoecker had the quick start for the women, and Wyatt the second quickest start for the men, and the duo backed that up with the two quickest runs to take the lead with their teammates and and the Germans to go.
Freya Tarbit and Craig Thompson were unable to match the time set by their teammates as they fell to ninth with Germany still to slide.
The final team off was Susanne Kreher and Christopher Grotheer, the pair who won the inaugural Skeleton Mixed Team event at the 2023 World Championships. Kreher made up for time lost on the start and closed the gap to .05 behind the Brits with Christopher Grotheer still at the top waiting to slide.
Grotheer, who came into the race with four victories in four races to start the season in men’s skeleton, gave up time at the start as he had done in seemingly every heat this season. However, unlike those other eight heats, he wasn’t able to close the gap to the teams ahead of him. His 57.03 downtime was the fourth quickest of the men, and enough to win Germany bronze, with Great Britain and the United States taking gold and silver.
The win was the second in World Cup action and first in the Mixed Team relay for both Stoecker and Wyatt.
For the United States’ Sara Roderick, the silver medal was her first on the World Cup tour, while Florian’s silver is his second World Cup medal. He’d previously won bronze in the Mixed Team Relay alongside Katie Uhlaender, also in Altenberg.
Germany’s Hannah Neise and Axel Jungk finished fourth, with China’s Yuxi Li and Zheng Yin in fifth, while Italy’s Alessia Crippa and Mattia Gaspari rounded out the top six.
Great Britain’s Tarbit and Thompson finished tenth, three spots ahead of Kelly Curtis and Hunter Willams of the United States.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Reac W | Time W | Reac M | Time M | Total |
| 1 | Tabitha Stoecker / Marcus Wyatt | GBR-1 | 14 | 0.20 | 61.62 | 0.18 | 59.57 | 2:01.19 |
| 2 | Sara Roderick / Austin Florian | USA-1 | 8 | 0.19 | 61.92 | 0.16 | 59.64 | 2:01.56 |
| 3 | Susanne Kreher / Christopher Grotheer | GER-1 | 16 | 0.14 | 61.73 | 0.19 | 60.09 | 2:01.82 |
| 4 | Hannah Neise / Axel Jungk | GER-2 | 11 | 0.16 | 62.22 | 0.13 | 60.01 | 2:02.23 |
| 5 | Yuxi Li / Zheng Yin | CHN-2 | 9 | 0.05 | 62.33 | 0.17 | 60.19 | 2:02.52 |
| 6 | Alessia Crippa / Mattia Gaspari | ITA-2 | 7 | 0.18 | 62.01 | 0.16 | 60.59 | 2:02.60 |
| 7 | Dan Zhao / Whenhao Chen | CHN-1 | 12 | 0.15 | 62.02 | *-.06 | 60.68 | 2:02.70 |
| 8 | Anna Fernstädt / Timon Drahonovsky | CZE | 6 | 0.27 | 61.80 | 0.19 | 61.20 | 2:03.00 |
| 9 | Valentina Margaglio / Amedeo Bagnis | ITA-1 | 10 | 0.28 | 62.40 | 0.18 | 60.68 | 2:03.08 |
| 10 | Freya Tarbit / Craig Thompson | GBR-2 | 15 | 0.15 | 62.36 | 0.20 | 61.26 | 2:03.62 |
| 11 | Anna Saulite / Samuel Maier | AUT-1 | 4 | 0.18 | 63.59 | 0.13 | 60.19 | 2:03.78 |
| 12 | Sara Schmied / Vinzenz Buff | SUI-1 | 5 | 0.19 | 62.62 | 0.28 | 61.16 | 2:03.78 |
| 13 | Kelly Curtis / Hunter Williams | USA-2 | 2 | 0.24 | 63.54 | 0.19 | 61.01 | 2:04.55 |
| 14 | Julia Simmchen / Livio Summermatter | SUI-2 | 3 | 0.18 | 63.31 | 0.15 | 61.42 | 2:04.73 |
| 15 | Ana Torres Quevedo / Adrian Rodriguez | ESP | 1 | 0.13 | 67.23 | 0.16 | 61.63 | 2:08.86 |
| 16 | Janine Flock / Alexander Schlintner | AUT-2 | 13 | DNS |