Tunbridge Wells’ Matt Weston is a double Olympic champion – and a history maker twice over – after steering Team GB to victory in a dramatic inaugural team skeleton event at Milano Cortina.
Following a crushing, record-breaking victory in the men’s event on Friday night, Weston, alongside Tabby Stoecker, once again proved he is the world’s best with a storming run, the duo topping the podium by 0.17sec with 1min59.36sec in a landmark moment for British sport.
Unlike in the men’s event, Weston was left with it all to do after Stoecker’s penultimate run left the pair 0.30sec off the gold-medal position. In an event decided by the smallest of margins, three tenths was a huge gap to make up – but Weston raised the bar with a display arguably better than his Friday heroics.
The win means Weston, the first man to win skeleton gold for Team GB, is, thanks to an expanded programme, the first Briton to win two golds at the same Games.
Team GB, the most successful nation in the sport since it returned to the Olympic roster, now have five gold medals – with four of them awarded to Kent athletes with two for Lizzy Yarnold (2014, 2018). Cambridge’s Amy Williams won gold in 2010.
Team-mates Freya Tarbit and Marcus Wyatt were fourth from last in the running order, clocking 1min59.65sec – just missing out on a medal.
Germany’s Axel Jungk and Susanne Kreher were second (1.59.53) and fellow Germans Christopher Grotheer and Jacqueline Pfeifer were third in 1.59.54.
Thanet’s Taylor Lawrence starts his bobsleigh campaign in the two-man tomorrow (Monday).
