On the natural ice rink in St. Moritz, the German skeleton pilots clearly missed out on the medals in the fight for the 2023 World Championship title. Olympic champion Christopher Grotheer and Olympic silver medalist Axel Jungk minimized their chances in the first run and were unable to catch up. Matt Weston won the title.
Disappointing competition for the German co-favorites for the World Cup medals. Defending champion Christopher Grotheer finished ninth as the best German. “This is very sobering, a huge disappointment“, he had already said after the weak first two runs: “II’m the reigning world champion and Olympic champion and I’m kicking myself down here like a worst amateur“.
Axel Jungk from BSC Sachsen Oberbärenburg was also unable to eradicate his momentous mistake from the previous day. The 31-year-old had pushed his sled off track at the start of the first run, which is why he was almost two seconds behind the Brit’s best time.
Weston on course for gold, Grotheer should do magic
Grotheer, still world champion in Altenberg in 2021 and 2022, did not manage a clean run on the first day. At the start of the second day, he again failed to impress and almost dropped out of the first ten places. Ultimately, he secured ninth place in the final round. Grotheer missed the new world champion Weston by 4.54 seconds.
Italy’s Amedeo Bagnis took silver, 1.79 seconds back. South Korea’s Seunggi Jung won bronze. For Jungk, who raced to silver in Beijing in 2022, the competition ended in a disappointing 18th place (+5.91).
Junior World Champion falls behind
Junior World Champion Cedric Renner from RC Berchtesgaden, on the other hand, fulfilled expectations in his World Championship debut and initially put himself in a good starting position on day one. However, the second day of competition failed and so Renner slipped down to 16th place (+5.81). Felix Keisinger from WSV Königssee was the second best German in twelfth place (+5.09).