List of Olympic medalists in skeleton

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.

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, Alexander Tretiakov – 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 participations, John Heaton, Gregor Stähli, Martins Dukurs and Alexander Tretiakov are the joint medal leaders in Olympic skeleton, although only Tretiakov managed to win a gold medal.^[11] As of 2014, the United States are the most successful National Olympic Committee (NOC) in Olympic skeleton, having won eight medals (three golds, four silvers and one bronze). Great Britain comes next with six medals (two golds, one silver and three bronzes), and is the only NOC to have collected a medal each time that skeleton was featured at the Winter Olympics, particularly in the women's event. Thirty medals have been awarded to twenty-six sledders representing nine NOCs.

Men

In 2006, Duff Gibson became the first Olympic skeleton champion from Canada and the oldest individual Winter Olympic gold medalist.

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1928 St. Moritz	Jennison Heaton  United States	John Heaton  United States	David Carnegie  Great Britain
1932–1936	not included in the Olympic program
1948 St. Moritz	Nino Bibbia  Italy	John Heaton  United States	John Crammond  Great Britain
1952–1998	not included in the Olympic program
2002 Salt Lake City	Jimmy Shea  United States	Martin Rettl  Austria	Gregor Stähli  Switzerland
2006 Turin	Duff Gibson  Canada	Jeff Pain  Canada	Gregor Stähli  Switzerland
2010 Vancouver	Jon Montgomery  Canada	Martins Dukurs  Latvia	Alexander Tretiakov  Russia
2014 Sochi	Alexander Tretiakov  Russia	Martins Dukurs  Latvia	Matthew Antoine  United States

Women

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.

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2002 Salt Lake City	Tristan Gale  United States	Lea Ann Parsley  United States	Alex Coomber  Great Britain
2006 Turin	Maya Pedersen  Switzerland	Shelley Rudman  Great Britain	Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards  Canada
2010 Vancouver	Amy Williams  Great Britain	Kerstin Szymkowiak  Germany	Anja Huber  Germany
2014 Sochi	Lizzy Yarnold  Great Britain	Noelle Pikus-Pace  United States	Elena Nikitina  Russia

Statistics

Multiple medalists

Athlete	NOC	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Tretiakov, AlexanderAlexander Tretiakov	Russia (RUS)	2010–2014	1	0	1	17
Heaton, JohnJohn Heaton	United States (USA)	1928, 1948	0	2	0	2
Dukurs, MartinsMartins Dukurs	Latvia (LAT)	2010–2014	0	2	0	2
Stähli, GregorGregor Stähli	Switzerland (SUI)	2002–2006	0	0	2	2

Medals per year

Jon Montgomery (center) celebrates a Canadian back-to-back Olympic title. Martins Dukurs of Latvia (left) and Alexander Tretiakov 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	Total
Austria (AUT)		–		–		1	–	–	–	1
Canada (CAN)		–		–		–	3	1	–	4
Germany (GER)		–		–		–	–	2	–	2
Great Britain (GBR)		1		1		1	1	1	1	6
Italy (ITA)		–		1		–	–	–	–	1
Latvia (LAT)		–		–		–	–	1	1	2
Russia (RUS)		–		–		–	–	1	2	3
Switzerland (SUI)		–		–		1	2	–	–	3
United States (USA)		2		1		3	–	–	2	8

See also

• FIBT World Championships
• List of Skeleton World Cup champions

References

Medalists

• "Results and Medalists". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.

Citations

1. "Sports". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
2. "Skeleton Equipment and History". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
3. Kubatko, Justin. "Skeleton at the 1928 Sankt Moritz Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
4. Kubatko, Justin. "Skeleton at the 1948 Sankt Moritz Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
5. "Shea Family Legacy". US SHEA.com. Shea Enterprises. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
6. Kubatko, Justin. "Duff Gibson". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
7. Kubatko, Justin. "Skeleton at the 2006 Torino Winter Games: Men's Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. 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. Kubatko, Justin. "Skeleton". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 2, 2009.