Parsons’ rollercoaster route to medal
Dom Parsons rose to the occasion in dramatic fashion to claim Great Britain’s first men’s skeleton medal in 70 years in Pyeongchang.
The 30-year-old, whose only World Cup podium was in Calgary in 2013, thought he had blown his unlikely chance when a late mistake in his final run saw him slip below Russia’s Nikita Tregubov with two sliders still to go.
But incredibly, it was fivetimes world champion Martins Dukurs who crumpled under pressure, a series of uncharacteristic errors dumping the Latvian 0.11sec behind Parsons, and all but confirming a bronze for the Briton behind the runaway winner, South Korean Yun Sung-bin.
Parsons admitted: “It was a bit of a rollercoaster after the fourth run. I was devastated I thought I’d binned it totally. “I made a couple of mistakes down there that dropped me behind Nikita (Tregubov) and Martins (Dukurs), and, unfortunately for him, he made a couple of mistakes which cost him two spots. “Before he went down he was the last person I would have expected to make those mistakes. I’m very grateful that I got lucky. It doesn’t seem real to me.”
Despite suffering from an adductor muscle injury which ruled him out of making full starts until the eve of the race, Parsons impressed sufficiently in training runs to suggest an unlikely medal challenge.
So good were his times that they led to grumblings of discontent from officials of other nations who questioned the legality of his aerodynamic skin-suit – concerns swiftly dismissedbytheInternationalBobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.