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Yun captures men's skeleton gold

Greszczyszyn top Canadian in seventh
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Korean skeleton athlete Sungbin Yun completes his second run to win the men's skeleton race at Whistler Sliding Centre on Saturday. Photo by Dan Falloon

For the first time this weekend, Canadians earned no hardware in a BMW IBSF World Cup race.

At the midpoint, the Canucks were set to extend their medal run with veteran Dave Greszczyszyn sitting in third, but a rough second run dropped him to seventh.

In the end, South Korea's Sungbin Yun dominated, setting a new track record in his first run with a 51.99-second showing. His run in the second heat was the next-best effort of the day, too, as he beat Russia's Nikita Tregubov by 0.75 seconds and Latvia's Tomass Dukurs by 0.99 seconds.

Yun was thrilled to score the victory as he makes a push to medal at home at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang this February. Saturday's victory was his second in a row after starting the season with a silver-medal showing in Lake Placid.

"I feel happy," Yun said. "(I had) a good push and a good run."

While Yun felt he had a couple of mistakes in his second run, his starts that were just hundredths of a second away from the track record certainly means he's in good shape as he led from start to finish.

Greszczyszyn, meanwhile, felt like his first run was one of his best of the hundreds he's completed in Whistler.

"My push was pretty decent. I think I might have loaded a bit early but I just wanted to get on the sled. I felt a little bit wobbly but I got on," he said. "I just let the run go and it was just like training. It was a good result.

"I wanted to replicate that and I think I was (in the second run).

"There were a couple mistakes that I shouldn't have made, but it is what it is. I'm moving up in the field, so that's good."

Other Canadians were Kevin Boyer in 12th and Barrett Martineau in 15th.