Deas and Weston miss out as Hermann and Grotheer double up

Laura Deas and Matt Weston came agonisingly close to a World Championship medal as Tina Hermann and Christopher Grotheer slid to mixed skeleton gold in Altenberg.

Olympic medallist Deas and Weston, winner of a World Cup silver in December, teamed up to great effect in Germany but fell just short of a place on the podium, just as Weston did alongside Madelaine Smith 12 months ago.

Their time of 1:55.98 was just 0.57 seconds away from top spot, with Hermann and Grotheer prevailing on home ice to back up mixed team gold from previous competitions.

The German pair finished in 1:55.41 to add to their extraordinary weeks – with each prevailing in the women's and men's singles events prior to the mixed event.

"It wasn't so easy because my legs were really, really heavy," said Grotheer. "At the push, it wasn't good, the track conditions are really difficult and I'm satisfied with my run and the result."

Hermann's latest gold also sees her become the first female, and second athlete after Latvia's Martins Dukurs, to win at least five gold medals in skeleton World Championships.

She added: "It's a different thing to normal competition, it's funny to slide with a man and I hope we can make it to the Olympic Games."

Last year's champion Jacqueline Lölling and Alexander Gassner had to settle for silver this time around, 0.14 seconds behind their teammates.

Bronze went to Elena Nikitina and Alexander Tretiakov, just one hundredth of a second back for the pair representing the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia.

This event completes the skeleton leg of the World Championships with all nine medals going to athletes representing either Germany or the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia.

Attention now turns to the bobsleigh with the women's monobob and four-man events taking centre stage, with both medals to be awarded on Sunday.

Sportsbeat 2021