Olympic champion Yun, Hermann snatch skeleton victories at Winterberg World Cup

WINTERBERG, Germany - Skeleton Olympic champion Yun Sungbin of South Korea and Tina Hermann of Germany claimed the men and women's titles respectively here on Sunday at the IBSF World Cup.

The gold medallist of 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Yun collected his 10th World Cup victories by finishing one minute and 52.95 seconds, pushing the two German athletes Alexander Gassner (0.05 seconds back) and Axel Jungk (0.08 seconds behind) into second and third place.

After heat one, a mere 0.05 seconds separated the four athletes from third to sixth place. While Gassner and Jungk managed to make it onto the podium in the end, world champion Martins Dukurs of Latvia fell back to the fourth place after heat two. The junior world champion Felix Keisinger of Germany finished in fifth.

The Chinese athletes Yan Wengang and Geng Wenqiang did not manage to race to the top ten, ending with the 13th and 14th place respectively.

Jungk climbed to take over the top spot in the season overall standings with 617 points. Dukurs is the second with 612 points. After finishing seventh at Winterberg, Alexander Tretiakov of Russia will start the fourth World Cup race in third overall.

In the women's competition, Hermann secured the gold with a lead of three hundredths of a second, clocking at one minute and 56.21 seconds. The 27-year-old managed to make the decisive split seconds she needed to win over the last few meters of heat two.

By the end of the race, Hermann secured her first title of the season ahead of Canada's Mirela Rahneva. European champion Janine Flock of Austria finished third with 0.16 seconds behind.

China's Lin Huiyang finished at 59.43 seconds in heat one and was not qualified to heat two.

In the women's overall standings, the Olympic silver medalist Jacqueline Lolling of Germany with 627 points defended her lead with the fourth-place finish at Winterberg. Flock stands second with 610 points ahead of Hermann with 601 points.