Team Bath-based Weston skeleton world champion
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- Created on Friday, 27 January 2023 15:44
- Last Updated on Saturday, 28 January 2023 07:46
- Published on Friday, 27 January 2023 15:44
- Written by TEAM BATH PRESS OFFICE
The in-form slider, who was crowned European Champion last week, set a new course record on his way to becoming the first British man to win the global title since Kristan Bromley 15 years ago.
Team-mates Craig Thompson, from Swindon, and Bristol's Marcus Wyatt went mighty close to joining him on the podium, finishing fourth and fifth respectively as athletes from the University-based British Bobsleigh & Skeleton Association (BBSA) enjoyed two outstanding days on the iconic track.
“It’s an amazing feeling, an absolute dream to be World Champion,” Weston told the BBSA. “I knew I had a good chance after winning the last two World Cups in Altenberg but to actually come here and make it a reality is incredible. To do it at the birthplace of the sport as well makes it even more memorable.”
Weston went into the championships on the back of two successive World Cup victories and dominated throughout, sitting four-tenths of a second clear of the field after clocking 1:07.08 in the first run before setting a new track record of 1:06.88 to consolidate his position overnight.
He set the two fastest times again in Runs 3 and 4 to seal the title in stunning style, his combined time of 4:28.71 putting him nearly two seconds clear of runner-up Amedeo Bagnis of Italy.
Both Thompson and Wyatt found themselves occupying the bronze-medal position during the competition but were just edged off the podium, Thompson finishing just one-hundredth of a second behind Korea’s Seunggi Jung. Wyatt was two-tenths of a second behind his team-mate in fifth.
Weston’s gold is only the third medal won by British men at the World Championships, with the last being Adam Pengilly’s silver in 2009. Double Olympic Champion Lizzy Yarnold was the last Brit to stand on a World Championships podium when she won women’s skeleton bronze in 2017 – she had previously struck gold in 2015, two years after Shelley Rudman won the title.
Surrey-born Weston, 25, from Redhill, finished 15th in last year's Winter Olympics in Beijing.
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