Dukurs scores first win in 18 years
Holds off brother to win skeleton race on home track
Tomass Dukurs got his first World Cup victory on his home track nearly 18 years ago, and hadn’t won another race since. Until Friday.
Back on home ice, he held off his brother — 59-time World Cup race winner Martins Dukurs — for a victory nearly two decades in the making. Tomass Dukurs finished his two runs in 1 minute, 41.36 seconds, and Martins Dukurs crossed the line in 1:41.42.
Tomass Dukurs also won at Sigulda in 2004, but because of virus-related concerns, there was hardly any fans at the track to see his victory Friday.
“We are a bit sad that we are competing without fans,” he said. “That’s a big shame. But maybe next year.”
South Korea’s Seunggi Jung got his first World Cup medal, finishing third in 1:41.73. For the U.S.
men, who have struggled all season, Austin Florian was 24th and Andrew Blaser was 28th.
In the women’s race, Austria’s Janine Flock got the win in 1:44.64 and moved into second place in the World Cup overall standings. Russia’s Yulia Kanakina was second in 1:44.81 and Kimberley Bos
of the Netherlands was
third in 1:44.98.
Americans Katie Uhlaender and Megan Henry were 10th and 11th, respectively, and Kelly Curtis placed 20th.
Alpine skiing: Slovenian ski resort Kranjska Gora will play host to the two women’s World Cup races that were called off in Maribor, Slovenia, because of a lack of snow and unfavorable weather forecasts, local officials
said Friday. Organizers of the races wrote that FIS is giving the “green light for the competitions” to be held Jan. 8-9 — the same dates as originally planned in Maribor. The giant slalom will be held on Jan. 8, followed by the slalom the next day. The first run will start at 9:30 a.m. local time for both races, which could mark Mikaela Shiffrin’s return to competition. Sidelined since testing positive for COVID-19, the American missed this week’s races in Lienz, Austria.