Canada's Whistler-based events medal drought at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games came to an end in dramatic fashion on Friday (Feb. 19) on the final curve of the Whistler Sliding Centre track.
Jon Montgomery of Russell, Man., starting the final men's skeleton run 18 hundredths of a second behind Martins Dukurs of Latvia, laid down a challenge that Dukurs could not meet. The result was Canada's fourth gold medal of the Games, and first medal of any colour at an event based in Whistler.
The mostly partisan Canadian crowd in front of the finish area erupted along with Montgomery when Dukurs' sled crossed the finish line with the clock showing plus-.07 seven hundredths of a second as Montgomery's margin of victory.
Montgomery had entered Friday's third run trailing Dukurs by 26 hundredths. He said he knew he had to make up ground on the third run to have a chance at gold. That he did, knocking eight hundredths off the lead entering the fourth and final run.
"I knew if I could chip away on the first run, I had a chance, and we got 'er done," Montgomery said with a smile.
During Dukurs' fourth run, his advantage at one point was 23 hundredths of a second but kept getting smaller as his run progressed. He had a couple of bobbles near the middle portion of the track and the lead went down to 15 hundredths, then just eight hundredths at the final split.
When Dukurs rounded the final turn 16, Montgomery said his mouth was agape like everyone else's.
"I was biting my nails, for sure," he said.
When the finishing clock showed the results, Montgomery shouted above the din of the crowd, repeatedly pumping his fist.
Dukurs, who captured the silver medal, said he has had trouble with turn 16 all week and could almost sense that it might be his undoing.
"All through training I was fighting this curve," the Latvian said of the turn known at Thunderbird. "If I looked at the splits I could see Jon's final split was faster. Call it maybe 'black curve' for me."
Russia's Alexander Tretyakov captured the bronze medal, finishing 1.02 seconds behind Montgomery.
Asked whether he had a sense for how being a gold medalist might change his life, Montgomery said he hadn't thought about it.
"No clue," he said. "You get beyond what's an inch in front of you on a skeleton track and you'll be ass over tea kettle in no time."
Canadian Jeff Pain, the silver medalist at the 2006 Torino Games, finished ninth, 2.13 seconds off the pace. Canada's Michael Douglas, who was seventh coming into the day, was disqualified when he failed to take the covers off the runners of his sled after transporting it into the start area. A Canadian skeleton official said leaving the covers on keeps the runners warmer and allows them to slide faster. Race officials said Douglas' runners were uncovered three minutes too late.
"My buddy had a heartbreaking day," Montgomery said. "My heart bleeds for him and his family."
