List of Olympic medalists in skeleton

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A man celebrates near a joyful crowd waving American flags behind a security fence. Holding a helmet high in his left hand, he wears a blue, red, white, and orange jumpsuit with the Olympic rings, the words Salt Lake City, and a number four in the chest.
American Jimmy Shea won the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics men's skeleton event, becoming the first Olympic skeleton champion since Nino Bibbia in the 1948 Games.
A hair-shaved man smiles at the camera while holding in his left hand a golden medal. He wears a dark sports jacket with a white stripe along the arm length, and is inside a large reception tent with a small street lamp and a pine tree behind.
In 2006, Duff Gibson became the first Olympic skeleton champion from Canada and the oldest individual Winter Olympic gold medalist.

Skeleton is one of the Olympic sport disciplines contested at the Winter Olympic Games.[1] It was introduced at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz – the birthplace of skeleton[2] – in the form of a men's event contested over four runs.[3] Dropped from the 1932 and 1936 Winter Olympics program, skeleton returned in 1948, when St. Moritz hosted again the Winter Olympics, but was discarded from the following Games in Oslo. After 54 years of absence from the Olympic program, skeleton was reinstated as an official medal sport at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, featuring individual events for men and women.[2]

In 1928, the first Olympic skeleton event was won by American sledder Jennison Heaton, who also won a silver medal in the bobsleigh's five-man event. His younger brother, John Heaton, was runner-up, spending an additional second to complete all three runs (the fourth was cancelled).[3] He repeated this result 20 years later, placing behind Nino Bibbia of Italy, who won his country's first Winter Olympic gold medal.[4]

In 2002, American sledder Jimmy Shea – grandson of Jack Shea, two-time Olympic speed skating champion at the 1932 Lake Placid Games[5] – secured the gold medal by 0.05 seconds, becoming the first Olympic skeleton champion in 54 years. On the same day, another American, Tristan Gale, won the first-ever women's event in the discipline. In the 2006 Winter Olympics men's event, 39-year-old Canadian Duff Gibson beat countryman and world champion Jeff Pain to become the oldest individual gold medalist at the Winter Games.[6] Switzerland's Gregor Stähli won the bronze medal for the second time, beating the third Canadian sledder, Paul Boehm, by 0.26 seconds and thus preventing a medal sweep for Canada.[7] Four years later, Jon Montgomery secured a back-to-back victory for Canada in the men's event, while Amy Williams's win in the women's event gave Great Britain its only medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as its first individual gold medalist since 1980, and first individual female gold medalist since 1952.[8] This victory was emulated four years later in Sochi by another British athlete, Lizzy Yarnold, who secured her country's second consecutive Olympic skeleton gold medal.[9] The following day, Aleksandr Tretyakov – who had won Russia's first Olympic skeleton medal in Vancouver – beat the 2010 Olympic silver medalist Martins Dukurs of Latvia in the men's event to secure his first Olympic title.[10]

Having won two medals in an equal number of contests, Lizzy Yarnold, John Heaton, Gregor Stähli, Martins Dukurs and Aleksandr Tretyakov are the joint medal leaders in Olympic skeleton. Yarnold stands above them for winning gold at different games, the only person to defend an Olympic skeleton title.[11] As of 2018, Great Britain are the most successful National Olympic Committee (NOC) in Olympic skeleton ranked by number of medals, having won nine medals (three golds, one silver and five bronze) and was the only NOC to have collected a medal every Games that skeleton has featured at the Winter Olympics until 2022; they have featured particularly strongly in the women's event, with three of the five gold medalists and six of the fifteen total medalists. The United States comes next with eight medals (three golds, four silver and one bronze). By the alternative measure of number of golds, then silvers, then bronzes, the US is the most successful, with Great Britain in second place.

Men[edit]

Games Gold Silver Bronze
1928 St. Moritz
details
Jennison Heaton
 United States
John Heaton
 United States
David Carnegie
 Great Britain
1932–1936 not included in the Olympic program
1948 St. Moritz
details
Nino Bibbia
 Italy
John Heaton
 United States
John Crammond
 Great Britain
1952–1998 not included in the Olympic program
2002 Salt Lake City
details
Jimmy Shea
 United States
Martin Rettl
 Austria
Gregor Stähli
 Switzerland
2006 Turin
details
Duff Gibson
 Canada
Jeff Pain
 Canada
Gregor Stähli
 Switzerland
2010 Vancouver
details
Jon Montgomery
 Canada
Martins Dukurs
 Latvia
Aleksandr Tretyakov
 Russia
2014 Sochi
details
Aleksandr Tretyakov
 Russia
Martins Dukurs
 Latvia
Matthew Antoine
 United States
2018 Pyeongchang
details
Yun Sung-bin
 South Korea
Nikita Tregubov
 Olympic Athletes from Russia
Dominic Parsons
 Great Britain
2022 Beijing
details
Christopher Grotheer
 Germany
Axel Jungk
 Germany
Yan Wengang
 China
Medals
Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1  United States 2 2 1 5
2  Canada 2 1 0 3
3  Germany 1 1 0 2
4  Russia 1 0 1 2
5  Italy 1 0 0 1
 South Korea 1 0 0 1
7  Latvia 0 2 0 2
8  Austria 0 1 0 1
 Olympic Athletes from Russia 0 1 0 1
10  Great Britain 0 0 3 3
11  Switzerland 0 0 2 2
12  China 0 0 1 1
Total 12 nations 8 8 8 24

Women[edit]

Games Gold Silver Bronze
2002 Salt Lake City
details
Tristan Gale
 United States
Lea Ann Parsley
 United States
Alex Coomber
 Great Britain
2006 Turin
details
Maya Pedersen
 Switzerland
Shelley Rudman
 Great Britain
Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards
 Canada
2010 Vancouver
details
Amy Williams
 Great Britain
Kerstin Szymkowiak
 Germany
Anja Huber
 Germany
2014 Sochi
details
Lizzy Yarnold
 Great Britain
Noelle Pikus-Pace
 United States
Elena Nikitina
 Russia
2018 Pyeongchang
details
Lizzy Yarnold
 Great Britain
Jacqueline Lölling
 Germany
Laura Deas
 Great Britain
2022 Beijing
details
Hannah Neise
 Germany
Jaclyn Narracott
 Australia
Kimberley Bos
 Netherlands
Medals
Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1  Great Britain 3 1 2 6
2  Germany 1 2 1 4
3  United States 1 2 0 3
4  Switzerland 1 0 0 1
5  Australia 0 1 0 1
6  Canada 0 0 1 1
 Netherlands 0 0 1 1
 Russia 0 0 1 1
Total 8 nations 6 6 6 18

Statistics[edit]

Multiple medalists[edit]

A brunette with long wavy hair smiles at the top of a podium as she raises her right arm and holds, with her left hand, a gold medal hung around her neck. She wears a vivid red sports jacket and dark blue sports trousers.
Amy Williams was the first British athlete since 1980 to win an individual event at the Winter Olympics, and the first British female athlete to do so since 1952.
Athlete NOC Olympics Gold Silver Bronze Total
Lizzy Yarnold  Great Britain 2014–2018 2 0 0 2
Aleksandr Tretyakov  Russia 2010–2014 1 0 1 2
John Heaton  United States 1928, 1948 0 2 0 2
Martins Dukurs  Latvia 2010–2014 0 2 0 2
Gregor Stähli  Switzerland 2002–2006 0 0 2 2

Medals per year[edit]

Three young men dressed in winter clothing stand embraced side-by-side in front of a wall with the Olympic rings and the word Vancouver. The man on the center carries a gold medal around his neck, while the two men on the left and on the right carry a silver and a bronze medal, respectively, and hold up a flower bouquet.
Jon Montgomery (center) celebrates a Canadian back-to-back Olympic title. Martins Dukurs of Latvia (left) and Aleksandr Tretyakov of Russia (right) are their countries' first Olympic medalists in this discipline.
# Number of medals won by the NOC NOC did not win any medals
NOC 1924 28 32–36 48 52–98 02 06 10 14 18 Total
 Austria       1 1
 Canada       3 1 4
 Germany       2 1 3
 Great Britain   1   1   1 1 1 1 3 9
 Italy     1   1
 Latvia       1 1 2
 Olympic Athletes from Russia       1 1
 Russia       1 2 3
 South Korea       1 1
 Switzerland       1 2 3
 United States   2   1   3 2 8

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Medalists
  • "Skeleton". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
Citations
  1. ^ "Sports". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
  2. ^ a b "Skeleton Equipment and History". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on January 13, 2010. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
  3. ^ a b Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Skeleton at the 1928 Sankt Moritz Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  4. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Skeleton at the 1948 Sankt Moritz Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  5. ^ "Shea Family Legacy". US SHEA.com. Shea Enterprises. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  6. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Duff Gibson". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
  7. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Skeleton at the 2006 Torino Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  8. ^ "Amy Williams wins historic gold medal at Winter Olympics". The Bath Chronicle. 20 February 2010. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
  9. ^ Hope, Nick (14 February 2014). "Lizzy Yarnold wins Sochi 2014 gold for Great Britain". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  10. ^ "Sochi 2014: Alexander Tretiakov wins men's skeleton gold". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 15 February 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  11. ^ "Lizzy Yarnold Wins Gold 2018". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved February 17, 2018.