Parsons seventh at Worlds

06 March 2015

University of Bath postgraduate student Dominic Parsons produced an impressive performance on the final day of the men’s skeleton World Championships in Winterberg, Germany, to finish in seventh place overall, following up his tenth-place finish at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi last year.

Parsons was in fine form today as he improved on his start and run times from yesterday’s racing, posting times of 56.23 & 56.25 today to steal a march on Korea’s Sungbin Yun, who finished in eighth. Parsons’ first run today was the one which made all the difference, posting the fourth fastest time in the field.

The 27-year old from Dulwich in London finished in tenth place last year at his first ever Winter Olympic Games in Russia and has had a consistent season this year, capped off brilliantly by his performance today against a high-quality men’s field.

The overall World Championship crown was taken by Latvia’s Martin Dukurs, for the third time in his career, having also won the overall men’s World Cup competition this year. Dukurs’ brother, Tomass, won his first World Championships medal, taking bronze, and Olympic Champion Alexander Tretiakov of Russia won silver.

Following the race, Parsons said: “That was not a bad way to finish the season on the new sled, there are lots of things to work on which will see my performance improve over the next few seasons.

“I wasn’t sure where I’d be with a lot being changed, but I’ve had some competitive results and should be more consistent mixing it with the medal positions over the coming seasons. Overall I feel I’m on target for where I need to be in the build up to 2018”.

Two other sliders were in action from in a GB squad whose UK training base is at the Sports Training Village.  David Swift, of Newton Abbot in Devon, showed some good form today with with a start time of 4.96 and run time of 56.81 – both faster than his two runs yesterday – but was just nudged out of the top-20 sliders (22nd) and was thus unable to qualify for the fourth and final run of the event.

Ed Smith was unfortunately ruled out of today’s final two runs due to the leg injury which has troubled him throughout this season. The  29-year old from Bristol said: “After battling with injury all season I was hoping to come here and deliver a strong result. It wasn’t to be”.

Olympic Champion Lizzy Yarnold, European medallist Rose McGrandle and twice world cup medallist Laura Deas will round-off the World Championships for British Skeleton tomorrow with Yarnold in first overnight and McGrandle & Deas both well-placed in the top-10.

Live coverage of the women’s race is available on the BBC Sport website and via the Red Button, starting at 08:00 GMT tomorrow morning.

 

Source: British Skeleton

 

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