2012 FIBT World Championships - Men's Skeleton

From Lake Placid, USA

Martins Dukurs has taken his first big step toward winning the 2012 World Championship. With heavy snow falling across the Lake Placid area, Dukurs put down a seemingly slow time, .6 off his heat 1 pace. Frank Rommel came nowhere close to beating that time, and now finds himself .69 behind the Latvian, and the only slider under one second from first.

Matt Antoine has worked his way up to third after a run only beaten by Dukurs and Rommel, while Tomass Dukurs drops back a spot to fourth after a rather forgetful 9th fastest run. Ben Sandford still rounds out the top five, 1.37 off the pace, but less than .2 from a podium spot.

The second American slider, John Daly, is up to 9th, while John Fairbairn remains the lone Canadian in the top 10, currently ranked 7th. His countrymen Michael Douglas and Eric Neilson sit 11th and 16th, respectively. Both are in great shape to make it to the final heat tomorrow evening.

Pos	Name	Nation	Draw	Run 1	Run 2	Total
1	Martins Dukurs	LAT	3	53.77	54.37	108.14
2	Frank Rommel	GER	2	54.00	54.83	108.83
3	Matthew Antoine	USA	9	54.28	55.04	109.32
4	Tomass Dukurs	LAT	4	54.13	55.31	109.44
5	Ben Sandford	NZL	15	54.31	55.20	109.51
6	Sergei Chudinov	RUS	8	54.37	55.20	109.57
7	John Fairbairn	CAN	11	54.45	55.36	109.81
8	Alexander Kroeckel	GER	1	54.60	55.22	109.82
9	John Daly	USA	16	54.66	55.24	109.90
10	Alexander Gassner	GER	7	54.70	55.23	109.93
11	Michael Douglas	CAN	12	54.78	55.31	110.09
12	Kristian Bromley	GBR	6	54.44	55.66	110.10
13	Adam Pengilly	GBR	13	54.45	55.85	110.30
14	Ed Smith	GBR	18	54.96	55.40	110.36
15	Mathias Guggenberger	AUT	10	54.86	55.57	110.43
16	Eric Neilson	CAN	14	54.95	55.51	110.46
17	Alexander Tretiakov	RUS	5	55.29	55.40	110.69
18	Anton Batuev	RUS	19	55.31	55.57	110.88
19	Maurizio Oioli	ITA	21	55.37	55.66	111.03
20	Hiroatsu Takahashi	JPN	20	55.62	55.44	111.06
21	Shinsuke Tayama	JPN	23	55.39	56.23	111.62
22	Lukas Kummer	SUI	25	55.66	56.19	111.85
23	Ander Mirambell	ESP	24	55.74	56.32	112.06
24	Michael Hoefer	SUI	22	55.69	56.42	112.11
25	Axel Jungk	GER	26	55.83	56.42	112.25
26	Raphael Maier	AUT	17	55.59	56.93	112.52
27	Silviu Alexanderu Mesarosi	ROU	27	55.73	57.13	112.86
28	Alexandros Kefalas	GRE	28	56.11	57.04	113.15
29	Bradley Chalupski	ISR	30	56.57	58.20	114.77
30	Urs Vescoli	AUS	29	57.19	57.78	114.97
31	Tae-Rae Kim	KOR	31	59.55	58.54	118.09