Germany sweeps medals at home at men’s skeleton worlds

ALTENBERG, Germany (AP) — Christopher Grotheer’s surprise victory led a German sweep of the medals in the men’s world skeleton championships Friday.

Grotheer finished the two-day, four-run competition in 3 minutes, 44.81 seconds. That was two-hundredths of a second ahead of silver medalist Axel Jungk and only five-hundredths better than bronze medalist Alexander Gassner.

It was the third single-nation medal sweep in skeleton world championship history: Austria’s men did it on home ice in Igls in 1991, and Germany’s women pulled the feat off last year at Whistler in Canada.

Latvia’s Martins Dukurs was fourth, his lowest finish at a world championships since 2009. He had medaled in seven consecutive world-title races before Friday, with six golds and a silver in that span.

The win was only the second for Grotheer at the top level of sliding. He won a World Cup race in January 2017 — also at Altenberg.

Austin Florian was the top American, finishing 22nd.