Freya Tarbit Secures Maiden World Cup Gold, Enhancing Great Britain’s Skeleton Medal Count

Freya Tarbit, a medallist at both junior World and European Championships, secured her inaugural top-level medal, marking Great Britain’s second World Cup gold of the weekend at the women’s skeleton series debut event in Pyeongchang. This achievement comes after the win by her team-mate, Amelia Coltman, in Saturday’s initial race held in South Korea, where Tarbit placed fourth, missing a medal by a mere 0.02 seconds. On Sunday, the 24-year-old Tarbit participated in just her 11th World Cup competition. She took the lead following the first run and solidified her position in the second, completing the race in one minute 44.68 seconds – a margin of 0.96 seconds ahead of Germany’s Olympic champion, Hannah Neise. Veteran Austrian athlete Janine Flock secured third place, building on her silver medal from Saturday, while British competitor Tabby Stoecker came in fifth and Coltman finished 19th. During Sunday’s men’s event, Marcus Wyatt and Matt Weston, who were the overall title holders last season, earned their second silver and bronze medals respectively for the weekend, trailing Germany’s Christopher Grotheer for the second consecutive day. Coltman, aged 28, had initiated the medal streak impressively on Saturday, taking advantage of worsening track conditions to secure her inaugural medal at this competitive tier. Prior to this, she had never achieved a finish higher than fourth in any World Cup event. However, despite being in 15th position after the initial run, she recorded the second-quickest time in the subsequent run to clinch the victory. Natalie Dunman, the performance director for the British team, stated, “We came here with a focus on performance over results but we have managed to achieve both.” She added, “Winning any medal at this level is incredibly difficult so to come away with six from four races when there were more than 30 sliders in each field is really pleasing.”