Korea hosts 1st bobsleigh and skeleton world cup this weekend

By Baek Byung-yeul

With less than one year to go to the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Korea will host its first international bobsleigh and skeleton event at the resort town of PyeongChang starting Friday.

The PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG) said Thursday the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Cup will be held at Alpensia Sliding Centre, a venue for sledding sports during the 2018 Winter Games.

The Alpensia venue is the second artificial ice track in Asia after Japan’s Nagano. It measures at 1,376 meters and drops 117 meters from start to finish.

The three-day competition will feature women’s and men’s skeleton event on Friday; women’s bobsleigh and two-man bobsleigh on Saturday; and four-man bobsleigh event on Sunday. It is the eighth and the final World Cup race of this season.

Host Korea fields Yun Sung-bin in the skeleton and Won Yun-jong and Seo Young-woo pair in the two-man bobsleigh event.

The 22-year-old Yun ranked world No. 2 in 2015-16 season with 1575 points in World Cup standings. Won also has been doing well in this 2016-17 season, being placed No. 2, following Martins Dukurs of Latvia by 24 points.

During the past seven Yun has won the season’s first World Cup in Whistler, Canada, in December while Dukurs has won three events in Winterberg of Germany and St. Moritz in Switzerland in January and Igls, Austria two weeks ago.

If Yun wins in PyeongChang, he would become the first Korean to win an overall World Cup title in skeleton.

The two-man bobsleigh pair of pilot Won and brakesman Seo has been struggling this season, though the pair became Korea’s first overall champion in the sport last season.

The pair remains winless this season, being placed fourth with 1,128 points, nearly 200 points behind the German team led by Francesco Friedrich.