Skeleton-Flock leads at halfway hoping to erase 2018 pain

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 13 : Austria's Janine Flock will go to bed on Friday dreaming of the Olympic glory that has proved so elusive after setting a track record and then backing it up with a battling second run to lead at the halfway point of the women's skeleton singles.

Hard on her heels though are three in-form Germans and two Britons in a tightly-packed top end going into Saturday's decisive third and fourth runs.

Flock finished ninth in 2014 and 10th in 2022 but it was the 2018 Pyeongchang Games that will dog her forever unless she can get it right this year. She led after three runs then but, going out last in the fourth, made too many errors and slipped back to finish fourth, by two-hundredths of a second.

Now, at the age of 36, Cortina represents her last realistic chance of a medal and she is doing all she can to grasp it.

She was first out in the opening run and posted a track record of 57.22 seconds, which nobody could match.

On the second leg, with the slowest athletes out first, Flock was last out and fought hard to overcome some wobbles and clock 57.26 to lead - just.

Susanne Kreher leads the German challenge, sitting four hundredths behind. Jacqueline Pfeifer, second in the World Cup this season and the most impressive performer in training this week, broke Flock's track record with her second run to go third. She is just ahead of the third German, Hannah Neise, who won gold in Beijing as a 21-year-old.

"I was able to put in a really good performance on the ice today," Flock said. "I enjoy sliding here, the atmosphere is super-cool. All the people – my family and friends are all in the stands cheering me on. That gives me a real boost."

Flock said she was surprised none of the top-ranked sliders opted to