Skeleton, Men

Sliding on their home track, the Canadians expected to win the gold medal, led by Jon Montgomery and Jeff Pain. Montgomery had been fourth at the 2009 World Championships and was fifth in the 2009-10 World Cup standings. But Latvian Martins Dukurs, leading the 2009-10 World Cup, had other ideas and took the lead on the first run with a track record of 52.32. Montgomery was second, but 0.28 behind, and although he had the fastest second and third runs, he still trailed Dukurs by 0.18 seconds going into the final run, with Russian Aleksandr Tretyakov, the 2008-09 World Cup champion and the bronze medalist at the 2009 World Championships, in third. But an outstanding time in the last run by Montgomery moved him ahead of Dukurs by 0.07 seconds to take the gold medal. Tretyakov did enough in his final run to hold on to his third place, 1.02 seconds behind Montgomery. In winning silver and bronze medals, Latvia and Russia won their first skeleton medals in the Olympics. Also noteworthy was the poor performance of the Germans Frank Rommel and Sandro Stielicke, who were second and third in the 2009-10 World Cup standings, but finished only seventh and 10th.