Skeleton racers Antoine, Daly reflect on journey
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – Matt Antoine and John Daly stood at the top of the skeleton track at the Olympic Sliding Centre on a sunlit Friday morning, looking down at 1,376 meters of ice, looking back on 15 years of friendship, looking forward to uncertain futures.
Both were out of the medal hunt, too far back after the first two heats to race their way to the podium. That was disappointing, because they came to the Pyeongchang Olympics to win medals.
But they managed in that moment to see the bigger picture, to be grateful for the opportunities they’ve had, to be thankful for the journey.
Years from now, Antoine said, no one will re-
member that he finished 11th and Daly was 16th at the 2018 Winter Games.
“John and I said that we were probably going to be a little emotional today,” Antoine said. “John’s a little more emotional than me, but we both were. We gave each other a little hug at the top, told each other to enjoy one more run and then we had our moment there at the bottom.
“To be able to spend my entire career sliding and competing with my best friends, that’s the greatest feeling. Those are the things you’re going to remember most when it’s all over. The results fade away, the crowds go home but the friendships that you have are the things you’re going to remember.”
Korean phenom Sungbin Yun won the race and his first Olympic gold medal by a record 1.63 seconds with a four-run combined time of 3 minutes, 20.55 seconds.
Yun, who won five World Cup races and the overall title this season, posted the fastest time in each of the four heats and set track records on three of his four runs, including a 50.02 in the finale
Nikita Tregubov of Russia won the silver medal, moving up two spots after a rough third run left him in fourth place heading into the final heat. Great Britain’s Dom Parsons took the bronze, finishing just .02 of a second behind Tregubov.
Antoine, 32, a native of Prairie du Chien, Wis., who lives and trains in Phoenix, won the bronze medal four years ago in Sochi. It was the first men’s skeleton medal for the United States since Jimmy Shea’s gold medal performance at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
But Antoine never did figure out this Olympic track, with its perplexing corners, especially Curve 2 near the top. His four-run time of 3:24.39 was 2.19 seconds off the podium and 3.84 behind Yun.
“I struggled all week in training and going into today I was pretty far outside the medals,” he said. “It was really just about wanting to put down two more runs.”
He moved up to ninth with an opening run of 50.91 seconds Friday, his fastest of the four. But he struggled on the way down the track in the fourth heat, crossing the line in 51.34.
“Fourth run, obviously not the way I wanted to end the race, but I’m all right with it,” he said. “I’m looking at this right now as the whole of my career, the last 15-plus years. This is just one race. The result is what it is. To be here, with my family here, everyone supporting me, that’s all I could have asked for.”
Antoine said he planned to enjoy the next week in Pyeongchang attending events as a fan and then would “go home to a golden retriever waiting for me.”
In Sochi, Daly was in fourth place and within reach of an Olympic medal but on the final heat his sled popped out of the start groove a few steps into the push. He lost precious time and finished 15th.
Daly, 32, took a job as a medical device sales representative in Washington, D.C., but came back during the 2016-’17 season to make a bid for his third Olympic team. He finished a distant 4.80 seconds behind Yun.
“I got to walk off the track after four runs, hold my head high and wave to my family, and it was a moment I thought I’d never get back,” said Daly, who admitted to tearing up at the start line. “That’s enough for me. It’s not a medal but to me that was the moment I was looking for. That’s my medal.”
Antoine and Daly left the door open to a possible return, though they would be 36 at the 2022 Beijing Games.
“There’s always the possibility that I can go back,” Daly said with a smile, “and get my (expletive) kicked.”