Skeletonist Martins Dukurs, who four years ago finished seventh in the event, has won a silver medal for Latvia during the Feb. 19 men’s competition in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada.
Dukurs, the last to run the fourth heat in the zig-zag course at the Whistler Sliding Centre, recorded a total time of 3 minutes, 29.80 seconds, according to results posted on the official Web site of the Winter Olympics, www.vancouver2010.com. He was just .07 seconds behind the hometown favorite, Canada’s Jon Montgomery, who won the gold with a total time of 3:29.73.
Montgomery, who trailed Dukurs in overall time through the first three heats, was aided in part by breaking the track record of 52.32 that Dukurs had set in the first heat Feb. 18. Montgomery finished the third heat in 52.20.
The bronze medal in the men’s skeleton event went to Russia’s Alexander Tretyakov, who had a total time of 3:30.75.
Martins Dukurs’ brother Tomass finished fourth overall with a time of 3:31.13.
A total of 28 athletes competed in the event.
Martins Dukurs’ silver is Latvia’s second in the Olympics. Brothers Andris and Juris Šics earned a silver in the men’s double luge event on Feb. 17.
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Congratulations. He should have won gold as he was ahead for the first three runs. Latvia got a lot of spin off publicity from this event. “latvia Uzvares!!!!”
Dukurs A new Latvian World Champion in Skeleton and now a Silver Medalist! But he almost had the Gold. He started his fourth run with a great lead of -.26sec and increased the lead to -.28 at the next time interval. But then – for what ever reason – his sled began to slowdown – his lead fell to -.23 and then -.15 next it was down to -.08 and he finished +.07sec. In any event – Dukurs is currently the WORLD CHAMPION in Skeleton!
You can see the last two Dukurs skeleton runs here: http://bit.ly/9N2daG while it is active.