Creighton fourth at Cesana Skeleton World Cup
4th February 2011Britain’s Donna Creighton equalled the best performance of her career to date by finishing fourth in the FIBT Skeleton World Cup competition in Italy, while team-mate Shelley Rudman finished as runner-up in the overall 2010/11 World Cup series.
Both Rudman and Amy Williams joined Creighton in securing top-10 places at the Cesana track today (Friday), finishing seventh and eighth respectively.
But it was 25-year-old Somerset slider Creighton, who trains at the University of Bath, who rounded off an impressive campaign the way she started it – her fourth place in Cesana equalled her result at the opening World Cup of the year at the Whistler track in Canada in November.
“It’s an exciting result for Donna,” said Andi Schmid, British Skeleton’s Performance Director. “What was really exciting was that she had the fastest push and the third fastest finishing time on the second run behind Marion Thees and Anja Huber.
“To have three girls in the top-eight here was the second best team performance after Germany,” he added.
Rudman had gone into today’s eighth and final round of the World Cup in second place in the overall rankings behind Germany’s Huber, but Rudman was also battling against the effects of a fever and chest infection that forced her to miss yesterday’s final day of training.
Huber followed up his sizzling performances in training to strike gold today and make sure she won the overall FIBT Skeleton World Cup series, leaving Rudman having to settle for runners-up spot for the third year in succession.
Rudman had led the challenge for the Brits in the first run of the day, with the fourth fastest time, while Creighton was eighth and the halfway mark and Williams, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games gold medallist, in 11th.
But Rudman couldn’t match her opening performance on the second run and slipped three places down the field. Williams, meanwhile, climbed to finish eighth in only her fourth World Cup race of the season.
Earlier in the day Britain’s Chris Type finished 14th in the final round of the men’s World Cup, also at Cesana, one place ahead of team-mate Kristan Bromley. It means Type just missed out on a top-10 place in the overall World Cup series rankings in his first World Cup campaign – he finished 11th with Bromley 12th.
Andy Wood missed out on a second run after his first run time of 58.91 was 24th fastest.
Round 8 Skeleton World Cup results - women
Gold: Anja Huber (GER) – 1:56.71
Silver: Marion Thees (GER) – 1:56.77
Bronze: Darla Deschamps (CAN) – 1:57.07
4th: Donna Creighton (GBR) – 1:57.59
7th: Shelley Rudman (GBR) – 1:58.07
8th: Amy Williams (GBR) – 1:58.33
Final 2010/11 World Cup standings – women
1st: Anja Huber (GER) – 1710 pts
2nd: Shelley Rudman (GBR) – 1642 pts
3rd: Melissa Hollingsworth (CAN) – 1516 pts
6th: Donna Creighton (GBR) – 1300 pts
17th: Amy Williams (GBR) – 616 pts
Round 8 Skeleton World Cup results - men
Gold: Martins Dukurs (LAT) – 1:53.06
Silver: Tomass Dukurs (LAT) – 1:54.27
Bronze: Sandro Stielicke (GER) - 1:54.32
14th: Chris Type (GBR) – 1:55.38
15th: Kristan Bromley (GBR) – 1:55.53
24th: Andy Wood (GBR) – 58.91 (one run only)
Final 2010/11 World Cup standings – men
1st: Martins Dukurs (LAT) – 1719 pts
2nd: Sandro Stielicke (GER) – 1466 pts
3rd: Frank Rommel (GER) – 1410 pts
11th: Chris Type (GBR) – 1048 pts
12th: Kristan Bromley (GBR) – 1018 pts
24th: Andy Wood (GBR) – 397 pts
31st: Adam Pengilly (GBR) – 142 pts