Good Vibes for Weston & Wyatt
Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt say confidence is high for them both as individuals and for the British Skeleton team as a whole heading to the Cortina Olympic Winter Games after they ended the World Cup campaign in style.
Weston won the Overall World Cup title, while Wyatt won yesterday’s race, plus overall individual bronze and overall mixed team gold, in an historic season for Great Britain. Between them, they won every one of the seven top tier races this term, with only the Olympics now left on the race calendar.
And with Tabby Stoecker taking overall bronze in the women’s field and Amelia Coltman and Freya Tarbit finishing 10th and 11th in the season standings respectively, GB are clearly in a good place ahead of the biggest event of the year.
“I’m really happy to be heading into the Cortina Olympics with another overall title,” said Weston, who joined Alex Coomber as the only Brit to win three World Cup crowns in a row in Altenberg on Friday.
It gives me really good confidence but it also shows how strong we are as a team. For GB to have won every single men’s race this season is pretty amazing and it gives the team confidence going to Cortina.
“Now I’m looking forward to going home, getting some chill time and getting ready and prepped for the Games so that I can really maximise my time when I’m in Cortina.
“We’re excited to get going and we’ll be looking to take the momentum from the World Cup season with us.”
Wyatt’s win in the final World cup race of the season had an added air of poetry to it after he started the four-year cycle in the same manner when he won gold in Whistler in November 2022.
The former American footballer, who will be hoping for more celebrations when his Buffalo Bills team take on the Denver Broncos in the NFL’s divisional round today, broke the track record twice at arguably the trickiest track on the circuit as he notched his second win of the season after success in Sigulda before Christmas.
“I’m over the moon with that,” said Wyatt.
I wanted to put in a good performance to solidify confidence going into Cortina and I knew it was between me and Axel (Jungk) for third in the overall, so those were my goals. I felt I like I absolutely smashed them!
“I’m super happy with how I slid. I was pleased with how I delivered on both runs, putting down the fastest times in both.
“It’s a tough track and it’s never been quicker than that. We saw in the women’s race that they’d set records so I knew it was possible. With bib no1, I wanted to go out there, focus on me, do my own thing, and that’s what I managed to do. To come away with a track record was the icing on the cake.”
The cherry on top of the icing on top of that cake followed a couple of hours later when Wyatt was back on the podium as the first-ever winner of the Overall World Cup title in the mixed team event.
Wyatt raced in all four of the team competitions this season, registering two fifth place finishes after back-to-back wins in the opening two events.
“We knew we were leading the overall standings and it was really cool to hang on to that position,” added the 34-year-old.
To bring home team race gold was really special. I’d done all four team races so it was brilliant to be part of the first crystal globe winning team.
“I’m riding pretty high now going into Cortina. I couldn’t have asked for much more this weekend: it was the perfect day to take into the Games.”