From Lake Placid, USA
(January 26, 2025) – Olympic bronze medalist Wengang Yan edged out teammate Qinwei Lin to win the final race of the 2024/2025 North American Cup men’s skeleton season in a come from behind victory.
Yan trailed Lin by .23 after the first heat. Behind the duo were two teammates in Wenhao Chen and Zheng Yin, with Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych the first slider not from China in fifth.
In the second heat Heraskevych took the lead from Germany’s Christopher Grotheer with the four athletes from China still to go. Yin held his position, but was picked off by Chen, who secured a medal with his second effort.
Yan was next, and in a heat where nearly everyone was slower in their second run he nearly matched his first run time to take the lead.
Lin outstarted Yan by a hundredth of a second to take a .24 second lead into Curve 1, but wasn’t quite as clean through the midway point of his run and crossed the line .04 back behind Yan for silver, with Yan taking bronze.
Yan’s win was his second on the season in North American Cup action and seventh win between North American, Europe, and Asian Cups.
Lin’s silver was his second straight, while Chen’s bronze was his first medal since the 2023/2024 North American Cup season (Lake Placid).
Yin took fourth, Heraskevych fifth, and Grotheer sixth, up from seventh in the first heat.
Laurence Bostock and Jacob Salisbury put two British sleds in the top ten in eighth and tenth, respectively. Teammate Kane Densley was 21st.
For the United States, Pan American Champion Braldey Nicoll moved up from 13th in the first heat to finish 11th. Nicholas Brooks and Andrew Whittier-Neises were 23rd and 25th, while Dylan Burris 30th, Lukas Kissell 35th and Tyler Lutz 36th.
For the second straight race, Ryan Kuehn was the top Canadian in 16th, with Marc-Antoine Vigneault 24th. Jacob Coleman was 28th, Sebastien Regnier 31st and Eliot Tremblay 37th.
Nick Timmings scored a top ten finish in ninth for Australia.
USA’s Andrew Whittier-Neises had already clinched the North American Cup title coming into the race, and finished the season 55 points ahead of Wengang Yan, who had four strong races to finish second. Nick Timmings was third overall, five points ahead of Jared Firestone in fourth, with Taiwan’s Lin-Wei Peng fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Finish |
| 1 | Wengang Yan | CHN | 4 | 4.94 | 4.87 | 54.31 | 54.33 | 1:48.64 |
| 2 | Qinwei Lin | CHN | 6 | 4.77 | 4.86 | 54.08 | 54.60 | 1:48.68 |
| 3 | Wenhao Chen | CHN | 7 | 5.00 | 4.94 | 54.42 | 54.76 | 1:49.18 |
| 4 | Zheng Yin | CHN | 2 | 5.06 | 5.08 | 54.45 | 55.12 | 1:49.57 |
| 5 | Vladyslav Heraskevych | UKR | 9 | 5.08 | 5.09 | 54.59 | 55.00 | 1:49.59 |
| 6 | Christopher Grotheer | GER | 10 | 5.12 | 5.15 | 54.71 | 55.12 | 1:49.83 |
| 7 | Felix Keisinger | GER | 1 | 5.01 | 4.98 | 54.65 | 55.33 | 1:49.98 |
| 8 | Laurence Bostock | GBR | 19 | 4.87 | 4.95 | 54.93 | 55.58 | 1:50.51 |
| 9 | Nicholas Timmings | AUS | 13 | 5.13 | 5.10 | 55.17 | 55.58 | 1:50.75 |
| 10 | Jacob Salisbury | GBR | 14 | 4.93 | 4.90 | 54.98 | 56.01 | 1:50.99 |
| 11 | Bradley Nicol | USA | 39 | 5.15 | 5.13 | 55.61 | 55.70 | 1:51.31 |
| 12 | Lucas Defayet | FRA | 11 | 5.31 | 5.13 | 55.58 | 55.92 | 1:51.50 |
| 13 | Lukas Nydegger | GER | 5 | 5.21 | 5.24 | 55.57 | 56.03 | 1:51.60 |
| 14 | Rasmus Johansen | DEN | 3 | 5.07 | 5.12 | 56.05 | 55.86 | 1:51.91 |
| 15 | Guoqing Yu | CHN | 15 | 5.11 | 5.08 | 55.75 | 56.18 | 1:51.93 |
| 16 | Ryan Kuehn | CAN | 34 | 4.99 | 4.93 | 55.81 | 56.14 | 1:51.95 |
| 17 | Jared Firestone | ISR | 17 | 5.17 | 5.19 | 55.99 | 56.11 | 1:52.10 |
| 18 | Josip Brusic | CAN | 23 | 5.04 | 4.95 | 55.81 | 56.41 | 1:52.22 |
| 19 | Jonathan Yaw | MAS | 31 | 5.27 | 5.20 | 56.21 | 56.35 | 1:52.56 |
| 20 | Akwasi Frimpong | GHA | 26 | 5.01 | 4.99 | 56.27 | 56.75 | 1:53.02 |
| 21 | Kane Densley | GBR | 36 | 4.84 | 4.94 | 56.46 | 56.57 | 1:53.03 |
| 22 | Lin-Wei Peng | TPE | 18 | 5.19 | 5.17 | 56.61 | 56.83 | 1:53.44 |
| 23 | Nicholas Brooks | USA | 21 | 5.25 | 5.36 | 56.75 | 56.83 | 1:53.58 |
| 24 | Marc-Antoine Vigneault | CAN | 25 | 5.22 | 5.17 | 56.60 | 57.49 | 1:54.09 |
| 25 | Andrew Whittier-Neises | USA | 20 | 5.02 | 5.05 | 56.55 | 57.63 | 1:54.18 |
| 26 | Jeff Bauer | LUX | 29 | 5.50 | 56.91 | |||
| 27 | Chun-Hung Chiang | TPE | 16 | 5.35 | 56.94 | |||
| 28 | Jacob Coleman | CAN | 24 | 5.42 | 56.96 | |||
| 29 | Hayato Kawano | JPN | 32 | 4.98 | 57.08 | |||
| 30 | Dylan Burris | USA | 22 | 5.17 | 57.59 | |||
| 31 | Debastien Regnier | CAN | 33 | 4.90 | 57.66 | |||
| 32 | Kevin Lee | TPE | 37 | 5.22 | 57.68 | |||
| 33 | Eduardo Strapasson | BRA | 30 | 5.34 | 57.72 | |||
| 34 | Oren Milstein | ISR | 27 | 5.36 | 57.78 | |||
| 35 | Lukas Kissell | USA | 38 | 5.37 | 57.93 | |||
| 36 | Tyler Lutz | USA | 28 | 4.93 | 58.09 | |||
| 37 | Eliot Tremblay | CAN | 35 | 5.33 | 59.23 | |||
| DNS | Haifeng Zhu | CHN | 12 | DNS | ||||
| DNS | Axel Jungk | GER | 8 | DNS |