Skeleton Olympic champion Hannah Neise has made a dream start to the new season. The 22-year-old high-flyer raced to the first World Cup victory of her career at the start in Whistler, Canada. The other German pilots missed the podium.
“It was definitely better than expected, it was my first time here at the start. I can build on that, the win strengthens my back,” said Neise.
The woman from Winterberg triumphed on Thursday (local time) after two runs ahead of Clarke Hallie (USA) and Britain’s Crowley Brogan, who shared second place 0.18 seconds behind. World Champion Tina Hermann was sixth (+0.52). Junior World Champion Susanne Kreher finished tenth (+0.74).
Neise, who surprisingly won Olympic gold in Beijing in February, advanced from second to first place in the final round on the very fast and extremely difficult Olympic track from 2010. In her previous career, the native of Arnsberg had never stood on a World Cup podium.
The German men drove past the podium. The Olympic silver medalist Axel Jungk finished fourth (+0.69) in the first World Cup race in North America since the end of 2019, only three hundredths of a second were missing from third place. Olympic champion and world champion Christopher Grotheer (Oberhof) was fifth (+1.03), German champion Felix Keisinge was seventh (+1.72). Victory went to Briton Marcus Wyatt.
In the past two winters, the Skeleton World Cup was held exclusively in European ice canals due to the corona pandemic. The second race of the season takes place next Thursday in Park City, USA.