BERLIN, Feb. 28 -- Germany made a clean sweep of podium finish in the men's skeleton at the IBSF World Championships in Altenberg, Germany on Friday.
Over the space of two days and four runs, Christopher Grotheer, Alexander Gassner and Axel Jungk delivered an exceptionally tense race at the track. The order of the medal winners eventually came down to just five hundredths of a second, about 15 centimeter.
The World Championship title went to the surprise winner Grotheer for the first time in his career. The 2019 team world champion, who did not compete in this season's World Cup, joined the World Championship team right at the last second after his teammate Felix Keisinger secured his own place in the competition by winning the junior World Championships.
In the final and deciding heat, Grotheer managed to scrape back a whole two hundredths of a second as he passed the finish line.
"The last run wasn't good. I thought I hadn't done enough. But I really pushed hard again down at the bottom. I already noticed ahead of the third run that I was more nervous today than I was on the first day. I can't believe I pulled it off," said Grotheer, who became the first German winner since Andy Bohme in 2000.
Second place went to his teammate Jungk, who therefore won World Championship silver for the second time in his career.
Jungk had the best time in three of the four heats but it was his second run, in which he was third fastest, that ultimately cost the local hero the title.
"It's annoying that my second run went so pear-shaped. Christopher managed to get in four really good runs, pure and simple. Somehow, two hundredths of a second are more of a bitter pill to swallow than if it had been two tenths," said Jungk, who was the runner-up in the 2017 World Championships and ranked in second place in the overall 2018 World Cup.
The bronze went to Gassner, who was just 0.05 seconds behind the winner.
"I could have done without that tiny mistake on the last corner on my last run. We delivered an incredible race and I had actually been hoping to fight my way to the top today to win gold. But the other two were stronger and I am happy with third place," said Gassner, who was fifth in the 2020 European Championships and in the overall World Cup.
The men's skeleton has only seen a top three from a single team once before - the medals at the 1991 World Championships in Innsbruck went to the three Austrians Christian Auer, Andi Schmid and Michael Grunberger.
Latvia's Martins Dukurs, the defending world champion and still undisputed record-holder with a total of six World Championship golds, was left without a World Championship medal for the first time since 2009. The 2010 and 2017 Olympic silver medallist finished fourth ahead of junior world champion Keisinger and Olympic champion Yun Sungbin of South Korea.
The best performance from future Olympic hosts China came from Yan Wengang in 11th place.