Deas 19th, Crowley 22nd in China
The skeleton events at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games drew to a close on Saturday afternoon as Laura Deas and Brogan Crowley finished 19th and 22nd respectively in Beijing.
Deas clocked a combined time of 4 minutes 11.55 seconds over her four runs, with Crowley recording 3 minutes 9.37 seconds across three heats after missing out on a fourth run reserved for the field’s top 20 sliders.
Both British sliders clocked their fastest times in their final runs as Crowley closed the gap on the top 20 and Deas jumped up another spot in Run 4 having moved up from 21st to 20th after Run 3.
Germany continued their stunning Games so far as 21-year-old Hannah Neise added to the gold and silver her country won yesterday through Christian Grotheer and Axel Jungk in the men’s competition.
Neise had never medalled in a major international race before but she took the Olympic title ahead of Australia’s Jaclyn Narracott and Kimberley Bos of the Netherlands.
Narracott, who is married to Great Britain’s 2018 Olympic bronze medalist Dom Parsons, became the first skeleton athlete from Australia to win an Olympic medal as she finished 0.62 seconds behind Neise and 22 hundredths ahead of Bos.
Bos sat in 10th place after her first run on Friday but the reigning overall World Cup Champion climbed the standings and moved ahead of current World Championship gold medalist Tina Hermann in the final heat.
Bobsleigh will now take centre stage at the National Sliding Centre in Yanqing, with the women’s monobob event starting proceedings this Sunday at 1.30am GMT.
British interest begins a day later as Brad Hall and Nick Gleeson feature in the 2-man competition from 12.05pm on Monday.
