CTV Online here - By Kristina Rutherford, CTVOlympics.ca
He was sitting in second with one run to go, but Canada’s Jon Montgomery put together a gutsy performance to win men’s skeleton gold on Friday at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
The Russell, Man., native edged Latvia’s Martins Dukurs by just 0.07 seconds.
“When I saw that plus 0.07s come up, I lost my mind,” a smiling Montgomery, draped in a Canadian flag, said after his race. “It’s Canada’s gold medal.
“Without my sponsors and Own the Podium and the COC and everybody else involved, this wouldn’t be a reality, so everybody in Canada has a piece of this gold medal for sure, especially Russell, Manitoba – yeah, yeah, yeah,” he added, grinning.
It was Dukurs who led the competition after Day 1, and through three runs was sitting 0.18s ahead of Montgomery.
The Canadian laid down a track record-setting time in his opening run on Friday to pull closer to that gold medal with one heat to go.
Montgomery, 30, saved his best start for last, clocking a time of 4.61s en route to a 52.36s run.
It’s the fourth Olympic gold medal for Canada at the 2010 Games, and the second straight Olympic gold in men’s skeleton following Duff Gibson’s win in 2006.
Sporting his Canada toque, an elated Montgomery jumped on the victory podium and pumped his fists as a Canadian contingent cheered him on track-side.
Told he was an Olympic champion, Montgomery said, “That sounds unreal, man. I’m gonna have to get used to hearing that, because it hasn’t sunk in yet, that’s for sure.”
Montgomery clocked a four-run time of 3 minutes, 29.73 seconds.
“I certainly didn’t leave anything on the track. I let it – like I said - all hang out, and it turned out for the best today,” he said.
Russia’s Alexander Tretyakov won bronze, 1.02s back.
Jeff Pain of Calgary, the reigning Olympic silver medallist, finished 9th.
Pain, who was 10th in overall 2009-10 World Cup standings, was competing despite a torn oblique muscle.
Calgary’s Mike Douglas was disqualified from the competition earlier Friday for a technical violation.
According to the FIBT, he failed to remove the covers from his runner blades in time. All runners need to be exposed to the air 45 minutes before competition, and Douglas was three minutes late.
Douglas was sitting in seventh overall after Thursday’s opening two runs, 0.96 off the pace and with a shot at the bronze medal.
“It’s awful. It’s one of those mental lapses that you pray never happens to me and to my teammates,” said Pain.
Montgomery will receive his gold medal Saturday night at a ceremony in Whistler.
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