Germans go 1-2 as Rommel wins men’s World Cup skeleton race at Lake Placid

Germany’s Rommel wins men’s World Cup skeleton

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Last February, Frank Rommel struggled to 13th place in the skeleton world championships at Mount Van Hoevenberg, and his four victories in the World Cup regular season quickly became an icy afterthought.

The rising German star exacted a measure of revenge on Friday, posting the fastest time on each of two runs on the same mountain to easily beat teammate Sandro Stielicke in the second race of the World Cup season. Rommel finished in 1 minute, 50.88 seconds, nearly a half-second ahead of Stielicke.

“It’s kind of revenge for last year’s World Championships here,” said Rommel, who will compete in his second Winter Olympics in February. “It wasn’t my race then. This time I knew how to take care of myself. I’m quite happy to bring it all together today. It was a strong team performance. We have a good team.”

Stielicke finished in 1:51.36, followed by Martins Dukurs of Latvia, who won the World Cup opener a week ago at Park City, Utah. Dukurs took the bronze, just 0.01 seconds behind Stielicke, and Dukurs’ brother Tomass was fourth in 1:51.50.

The United States had its second straight so-so showing on its two home tracks. Eric Bernotas was fifth in 1:51.71, Zach Lund was 10th in 1:52.14, and rookie John Daly was 11th at 1:52.15 in just his second career World Cup race.

Blame it on Mother Nature.

The opener at Park City was plagued by heavy snow. On Friday, sliders faced a soft track because of a steady overnight rain in the snowless Adirondack Mountains and temperatures in the 40s. That left some water on the course and made the race much different from the fast conditions that prevailed during a week of training.

“The soft ice takes a little bit of the home-track advantage away,” said Lund, who’s been nursing a sore hamstring. “We’ve had a spate of bad luck at our home tracks with the weather for our sliding styles. When it’s harder, you have more speed, and the more speed helps you make up time down the track. That’s just racing.”

Still, the 24-year old Daly was ecstatic after posting the second and third best starts among the 23 competitors.

“It went good, two solid runs,” Daly said. “That’s the best job I can do today. I’m moving up. Some of these guys have been on the tour half of my lifetime. It’s definitely intimidating. You make one mistake and they’ll eat you up.”

Earlier, Mellisa Hollingsworth won gold in the women’s race to give Canada, host of the 2010 Winter Games, its third medal in two races. The men didn’t fare so well. Jon Montgomery finished 12th and teammate Jeff Pain was 13th. Both were more than a second behind Rommel.

“I’ve had better days. You’ve got to adjust to what you get,” said Pain, who qualified for the Olympics a week ago with a tie for sixth at Park City. “Every day from now on is practice for that big day in February. I’ll take what I have and be happy about it.

“It’s great for her (Hollingsworth), a morale booster,” Pain said. “Hopefully, we can carry the momentum forward. We didn’t hold up our end of the bargain.”

Gregor Staehli of Switzerland was 17th after the first run and more than a second behind after injuring his left hamstring at the start and dropped out of the race.