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Lizzy Yarnold and Laura Deas added two medals to Great Britain's 2018 Winter Olympics tally on Saturday, grabbing the gold and bronze in the women's skeleton, respectively.
Defending champion Yarnold produced a stunning, record-setting final run to take the top spot, while Deas was fast throughout the final day. Yarnold became the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympics title in the process.
BBC's Dan Walker put the remarkable achievement in perspective:
Germany's Jacqueline Lolling took the silver medal.
Yarnold had a great first run of the day despite a little bump in the tricky 10th corner, and team-mate Deas followed her shortly after with her eye on the top spot after a good exit from Turn 9.
Both fell behind Austria's Janine Flock, however, despite Deas posting her best score so far. Team GB was still impressed:
Germany's Tina Hermann went fastest in the third run and overall, with a time of 51.83 seconds pushing her closer to leader Flock. The results of the third runs moved Yarnold into second place, with Flock holding a narrow advantage.
Belgium's Kim Meylemans took the early lead through the final heats, but all eyes were on the athletes to come.
The United States' Katie Uhlaender came up well short after finishing fourth at the 2014 Olympics, and she struggled to fight back tears after her final run.
Hermann's last run was another quick one, at 51.86 seconds. And though Deas clipped a wall during her final run, she still beat the German to grab the lead ahead of the final sliders.
Per sports writer Chris Goldsmith, that was good news for Britain's medal chances:
Yarnold went even faster, setting a new track record with an incredible time of 51.46 seconds. To top it off, Flock quickly lost speed after a solid start, and she ended up with the 10th fastest time of the final runs, allowing Deas to sneak on to the podium and make it Great Britain's most successful day in Winter Olympics history.
Jacqueline Loelling of Germany topped the standings after the first two heats of the women's skeleton on Friday at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
She recorded a combined time of one minute, 43.86 seconds in Runs 1 and 2 at the Olympic Sliding Centre, while Austrian Janine Flock sits in second just 0.02 seconds behind.
Defending champion Lizzy Yarnold is in third ahead of compatriot Laura Deas, despite setting a track record in her first run.
Here are the times:Â
Jacqueline Loelling—1:43.86 (GER)
Janine Flock—1:43.88 (AUT)
Lizzy Yarnold—1:43.96 (GBR)
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Loelling set the early tempo in Run 1 with a time of 51.74—beating her own track record that she set in March last year.
Deas enjoyed a strong start in her run, but a small clip of the side of the track with her shoulder caused her to lose some speed, and she entered the second run in sixth place.
The field all fell behind Yarnold as she set a new track record with a smoother run than her predecessors, though, per the Guardian's Sean Ingle:
BBC Sport's Nick Hope noted the defending champion appeared to be suffering a little as she exited the track, though:
Winter sports blogger Ken Childs shared the standings after the first run:
Yarnold's issue perhaps affected her in the second run, as a couple of errors ensured her time was only ninth best. It is the first time the Briton has not been the leader in the skeleton after any heat she's competed in at the Olympics.
Canada's Elisabeth Vathje topped the timesheet in Run 2 with a 52.01, though after a slightly disappointing first run, she will go into the final two in eighth.
Deas was just 0.02 seconds behind with her second, putting her firmly in contention for a medal on Saturday, but Loelling will command the narrow lead for gold after she set a 52.12.
Yun Sungbin wears Iron Man on his helmet, and he was the superhero in front of the home crowd in the men's skeleton competition at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.Â
The South Korean star established himself as the one to beat in the first two runs and then captured the gold medal in runs three and four in the event that aired live Thursday night in the United States. Sungbin finished with a time of 50.18 seconds in the third run and 50.02 seconds in the fourth, bringing his cumulative time over the course of the entire competition to three minutes and 20.55 seconds.
Sungbin became South Korea's first Olympic medalist in a sliding sport—skeleton, bobsled and luge—and did it in style by winning gold in dominant fashion.
Nikita Tregubov, an Olympic Athlete from Russia, captured silver with a cumulative time of three minutes and 22.18 seconds, while Great Britain's Dom Parsons took bronze at three minutes and 22.20 seconds.
Here is a look at the top finishers, per Olympic.org:
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1. Yun Sungbin, Korea, 3:20.55
2. Nikita Tregubov, Olympic Athletes from Russia, 3:22.18
3. Dom Parsons, Great Britain, 3:22.20
4. Martins Dukurs, Latvia, 3:22.31
5. Tomass Dukurs, Latvia, 3:22.74
6. Kim Jisoo, Korea, 3:22.98
7. Axel Jungk, Germany, 3:23.60
8. Christopher Grotheer, Germany, 3:24.05
9. Alexander Gassner, Germany, 3:24.10
10. Jerry Rice, Great Britain, 3:24.24
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All Sungbin had to do to take home the gold was avoid a disastrous finish after a commanding start. Â
According to Liam Boylan-Pett of NBC Olympics, he set the track record with a time of 50.28 seconds in the opening run and then trimmed 0.21 seconds from that his second time around. As a result, he was a head-turning 0.74 seconds ahead of Tregubov.
That may not seem like much time, but it is an eternity in the skeleton when competitions often come down to the hundredth of a second.
Sungbin—who won the silver medal at Worlds in 2016—built on that and was an astounding 1.02 seconds ahead of Dukurs entering the last run and cruised to victory.
The real drama came in the race for the other two medals as Sungbin continued to pull further away from the rest of the field. Tregubov was in second after the first two runs with Martins Dukurs in third, but that quickly changed.
The Russian disappointed in the third run with a time of 50.53 seconds, allowing Dukurs (50.32) and Parsons (50.33) to leapfrog him. A mere 0.07 seconds separated the three heading into the last run with the silver and bronze hanging in the balance, and Tregubov responded with a clutch 50.56 to take home the silver.
Dukurs' 50.76 was just the fifth-best time in run four, allowing Parsons to hang on for a bronze.
While it was Parsons celebrating the bronze in Pyeongchang, American Matt Antoine was in that position in 2014 when he finished in third place in Sochi. However, he and fellow United States competitor, John Daly, were left looking up at the medal contenders Thursday and settled for 11th and 16th place, respectively.
Perhaps the best story outside of the race for the three medals was Ghana's first Olympic skeleton competitor, Akwasi Frimpong.
Boylan-Pett detailed Frimpong's story, noting he was born in Ghana, moved to the Netherlands when he was eight, was granted official residency there in 2008 and attempted to make the 2012 Olympic track team. However, an Achilles injury forced him to turn elsewhere, and he went out for bobsled before failing to make that team as well.
Rather than quit on his Olympic dream, he listened to his wife's encouragement and attempted skeleton—where he qualified for the Games and finished in 30th place as he built Olympic memories in Pyeongchang.
He and the rest of the field were left looking up at Sungbin, though, who thrilled the home fans and cruised to gold.
Yun Sungbin currently sits in first place in men's skeleton through two runs at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
The South Korean star posted a combined time of one minute, 40.35 seconds in his two heats, putting him 0.74 seconds ahead of Russian athlete Nikita Tregubov in second place.
With each of the four runs counting toward a cumulative time that decides the final rankings, there could still be a lot of movement before the medals are awarded. However, the hometown hero has put himself in great shape for a gold in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
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Standings Through Two Runs
1. Yun Sungbin (KOR) - 1:40.35
2. Nikita Tregubov (OAR) - 1:41.09
3. Martins Dukurs (LAT) - 1:41.23
4. Dom Parsons (GRB) - 1:41.26
5. Tomass Dukurs (LAT) - 1:41.46
6. Kim Jisoo (KOR) - 1:41.66
7. Axel Jungk (GER) - 1:41.78
8. Rhys Thornbury (NZL) - 1:41.93
9. Christopher Grotheer (GER) - 1:42.11
10. Alexander Gassner (GER) - 1:42.13
Full results available at Olympic.org.
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Yun pleased the home fans with a great start in this competition, setting a track record with his 50.28 in the first run.
He followed it up with an even better time in the second run, finishing with a time of 50.07. He was most impressive coming out of the gate, breaking his own record with a 4.59-second start.
The 23-year-old burst onto the scene over the past year with a World Cup title, making him the favorite to bring home gold in this competition.
Meanwhile, Martins Dukurs will be trying hard for his first gold medal after being the best in the sport for nearly a decade. The Latvian star won eight straight World Cup titles and five world championships, but he only managed a silver medal in each of the last two Olympic Games.
He came to compete this week with a third-place time of 1:41.23. His first run was mediocre for his standards, but he came back with a great second run of 50.38 seconds that was the second-best of all riders.
His older brother, Tomass, also remains in contention in fifth place, but the Latvian duo will still have to catch Tregubov, who has been solid in his first two runs.
It was a bit of a disappointing start for the Americans, with Matt Antoine sitting in 11th place while John Daly is currently in 13th place.
Antoine took home bronze in this event four years ago, while Daly was in position for a medal before struggling in the fourth run. Both entered this competition hoping to medal but will have a lot of work to do in the coming runs.
Akwasi Frimpong is in last place, but his presence in the field is a great story on its own:
He is only the second athlete from Ghana to compete in the Winter Olympics and has only participated in skeleton for two years, but he can still call himself an Olympian regardless of finish.
All 30 competitors will be back on the track for the third heat on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET (Friday at 9:30 a.m. local). Only the top 20 will enter the fourth heat about two hours later, where the medals will officially be awarded.
Matt Antoine, once cut from a skeleton-training school for not being good enough, has learned a thing or two over the years.
On Saturday, he learned another—what it’s like to be an Olympic medalist.
Antoine, 28, won the bronze medal in skeleton at the Sanki Sliding Center outside Sochi, holding off a charging Latvian Thomass Dukurs and managing to avoid the fate of friend and teammate John Daly, whose botched start saw him drop from medal contention in the run before Antoine’s.
"It's unbelievable," Antoine told the U.S. skeleton federation in a press release from the Olympics. "It's going to take some time to process it for sure, but it's the greatest moment of my life without a doubt. I've been preparing for this moment, but it's still just unreal right now."
Aleksandr Tretiyakov, nicknamed the “Russian Rocket,” won with a four-run time of 3 minutes, 44.29 seconds. Thomass’ younger brother, pre-race favorite Martins Dukurs, took silver in 3:45.10.
Antoine, who had alternated third and fourth spots with Daly through the first three heats, was well off the pace in 3:47.26. Daly, expected to duke it out with Antoine for bronze in a dramatic final heat, finished a crushing 15th in 3:49.11.
"My heart really goes out to John for the way that ended for him," Antoine said to the federation. "We've pushed each other to be where we are for our entire career, and I don't think either one of us would be where we are today, contending for a medal, if we hadn't been supporting one another along the way."
The medal is the second in skeleton for the U.S. team at the Sochi Games, with Noelle Pikus-Pace winning silver on Friday.
While American athletes are faltering in usually rich Olympic sports like speedskating and Alpine skiing, the sliding sports are up to the three medals and counting, with Erin Hamlin’s luge bronze.
American sleds are fast in bobsled, with at least one or two medals expected there.
But one was enough for Antoine’s hometown of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where a small group got up early, braving a morning temperature of 1 degree to watch Antoine’s race, broadcast from the mountains outside Sochi, Russia, on NBC’s live feed at local tavern Jim’s Bar.
“I can’t even believe it, I am so excited,” said Bridget Nichols, a Prairie High School classmate of Antoine’s, told Bleacher Report when reached by phone at Jim’s. “That’s why I couldn’t talk to you right away. I was watching the flower ceremony.”
Nichols said about 15 friends watched Antoine’s final run at the bar. The result, she said, brought huge cheers from the small group. She had never known anyone on an Olympic team, much less a friend.
“It’s exciting to see one of our own, from Prairie du Chien, there, at the Olympics,” she said. “I looked around and there were tears in people’s eyes.”
She said she wasn’t sure if anyone from town had ever made an Olympic team and that Antoine was an unexpected Olympian, considering he wasn’t all that athletic in high school. Nichols said she likes him because he’s always been down-to-earth, and she doesn’t expect that to change.
“He’s actually quiet inside, so to see him on the huge stage at the Olympics is pretty cool," Nichols said, adding Antoine told her he’ll be back in town in March.
“I told Matt, when he made it on the Olympic team, if he would let me, that I’d like to have a big party for him,” Nichols said. “I’m sure now that he’s won a bronze medal, the city will have plans for him when he comes back.”
Skeleton’s two medals are the first won by the U.S. since Team USA took three in 2002, when the event returned to the Olympics after a long hiatus. Jimmy Shea and Tristan Gale swept gold, and Lea Anne Parsley won silver.
"A medal for the U.S. is a medal for the U.S.," said Daly, seeking the preemptive silver lining before a day in which one of them was likely to leave Sochi empty-handed. "This program has struggled for a little bit just because we were young. It had nothing to do with equipment or anything like that. We were just young athletes. Now we have the equipment side, we have the coaching side and it's kind of our time."
It was Shea’s dramatic victory in 2002—in honor of his deceased Olympic champion grandfather, Jack—that drew both Antoine and Daly to skeleton in the first place. Antoine had watched the race and was enthralled by it.
Later that year, while in high school, he attended a skeleton school in Lake Placid, N.Y. at age 17, but was sent home after being told he didn’t have the skill.
So Antoine poured his energies into high school track, with the mission of making himself a faster athlete. Skeleton runs usually start with a 60-meter sprint before racers flop, belly down, on the sled.
The next year, he returned to Lake Placid, and eventually worked his way into the sport. He was named skeleton’s top slider before the 2010 Olympic season, practically a lock for Vancouver.
But he suffered another heartbreak, missing the team by one spot. It was Daly—who had started in the sport at the same time as Antoine—and 2014 Olympic teammate Kyle Tress who beat Antoine for the berth and finished 17th.Â
This time, Antoine, nicknamed “Cheese” in reference to his home state, came into his first Games No. 3 in World Cup standings.
Antoine and Daly, who lived on a shoestring budget and traveled together while advancing in the skeleton ranks, expected to be fighting for the lone bronze.
But after all those years together, it all fell apart in a matter of seconds.
Daly, fourth-last to slide, dived onto his sled during his start. But one of his runners slid from the grooved track and skittered sideways, and his legs flailed as the sled banged on the track walls.
Daly, 28, from Smithtown, N.Y., managed to stabilize the sled and had a relatively clean run, but the damage was done. After he crossed the finish, Daly was laying on his sled, holding his helmeted head in his hands in anguish.
Daly had this to say after the race, according to USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt:
I went for it. I basically gave it my all. It popped out. There's no one to blame but me. It's all on my shoulders. But I do wish I had a second chance at that run, and I know I could've done well. It was the most fun I've had in my career until that fourth run, and I knew USA was going to bring home a medal. I just wish it went down differently. I wish I gave myself a shot the last run. I feel like I didn't.
...
I would have rather come across the line in first and just be able to look at my family that's been waiting and hold up my American flag and get my Olympic moment. I messed up and didn't get it. I guess I'll have to wait four more years.
That left it to Antoine to secure a place for the United States on the podium.
At last, Nicole Pikus-Pace found herself where she knew she always belonged, an Olympic medal platform, and tried to keep her lower lip from quivering.
Pikus-Pace, a 31-year-old mother of two, now has an Olympic medal, silver, to complete her collection for a lifetime. It also caps what is her final comeback to skeleton, the sport of 80-mile per hour, face-first dives that she couldn’t turn away from despite crippling injury and emotional turmoil.
For Pikus-Pace, a career of wondering what might have been is now a silver reality. She has been a World Cup and world championship medalist. Take them all. This is the one she kept coming back for.
"I've been hit by a bobsleigh, missed an Olympics. There have been a lot of trials that have led up to this moment,” she told reporters after the race.
No matter that she finished behind Great Britain's Lizzy Yarnold, for gold. Yarnold, 25, led through all four heats over two days to win the second consecutive women’s skeleton gold for Great Britain in three minutes, 52.89 seconds, 0.97 faster than Pikus-Pace.
Russia’s Elena Nikitina, 21, thrilled her home nation crowd with bronze in a four-heat time of 3:54.30, edging American Katie Uhlaender of Breckenridge, Colo. in fourth, an agonizing .04 out of the medals.
Pikus-Pace, from Eagle Mountain, Utah, remained second throughout the competition, never able to summon a charge behind Yarnold, who proved worthy of her No. 1 world ranking. The top-three order of finish remained the same as when the day started.
When Yarnold crossed the line as the final slider, Pikus-Pace wasn’t even watching, having climbed into the stands to hug her kids and her sled-building husband and celebrate with a spirited American contingent.
Her medal is the first for the U.S. since skeleton’s return to the Olympics in 2002, when American sleds won three medals (Jimmy Shea, men’s gold; Tristan Gale, women’s gold and Lea Ann Parsley, women’s silver).
There could be more on Saturday, with U.S. men John Daly and world No. 3-ranked Matt Antoine sitting third and fourth, respectively, before the final two heats of men’s skeleton.
Being so close to a medal had to be painful for the crimson-haired Uhlaender, sixth in Torino in 2006 and 11th at the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
In the four years since, she has battled depression triggered by the death of her Major League ballplayer father, Ted, in 2009. She brings his National League Championship ring with her to competitions and wears a baseball-shaped locket containing some of his ashes.
The injury- and accident-prone Uhlaender also suffered a concussion in October and has sought advice and help from Olympic ski medalist Picabo Street, whom she considers a mentor.
But from an American standpoint, the day belonged to Pikus-Pace, because of other Olympic days that haven’t.
In 2010 at Vancouver, she finished fourth, one-tenth of a second from bronze, after returning to competition following a gruesome injury that kept her out of the 2006 Olympics in Torino.
At a track in Calgary in October of 2005, a runaway four-man bobsled hit her while she was picking up her sled in the finish area after a training run, throwing her into the air and shattering her leg, which required a steel rod to be surgically implanted.
She was coming off a world championship silver medal and was considered a contender for gold in Torino. She took the 2007-08 season off to have a baby, returned to make the 2010 Olympic team, then retired after the Vancouver Games disappointment.
But Pikus-Pace couldn’t stay away, coming out of retirement in the summer of 2012 after she suffered a miscarriage. In January of 2013, she won her first World Cup race since 2004.
After winning her silver medal Friday, Pikus-Pace, as relayed in a news release from her sport's federation, reflected on what she'd been through:
It was worth the wait. It was worth every minute of it. Honestly, getting hit by the bobsled, people said, 'Oh man, that's horrible. Getting fourth at the Olympics, they said ah, too bad.' Then I had the miscarriage at 18 weeks, and many tears were shed. But if I hadn't gone through every single one of those things I could not be here today. And this is right where I want to be, and to have my family here, the love and support, it's just beyond words. Just beyond words.
Memories of the accident came flooding back Thursday to those who knew Pikus-Pace’s background at Sochi’s Sanki Sliding Center, where a track worker was struck by a bobsled, suffering two broken legs on the same day the women’s Olympic skeleton competition started with two opening heats.
If that was a distraction to Pikus-Pace, it didn’t show. Neither did the fact she missed at least two days of training on the Olympic track after suffering from back troubles and a concussion.
Or the fact that a feud simmers between her and Great Britain. In November, the country protested a two-inch-long piece of tape on her sled handle and triggered Pikus-Pace’s disqualification after a World Cup race she had already won. Yarnold was declared the official winner.
Some surmised that might have been payback for a U.S. protest against Great Britain in 2010, when the U.S. complained about 2010 Olympic champion Amy Williams’ helmet.
None of that seemed to bother her, not when she was getting ready to realize a dream. Pikus-Pace stayed loose, even tweeting a photo and message prior to Friday’s final runs.
"My final goals for my last and final run of my career...see you at the bottom!" she wrote from the start house, just minutes before her start.
A few hours later, with tears in her eyes, her family nearby and a silver medal around her neck, none of that stuff mattered. It took a few more years than expected, and much more of a journey than she imagined. But now, Pikus-Pace had exactly what she wanted.
If there were a Comeback Player of the Year award at the Olympics, U.S. skeleton star Noelle Pikus-Pace would surely be a shoo-in.
After the first two of four runs in the skeleton finals, she is in second place. Friday, she'll ride the sled twice more—flat on her stomach, inches above the ice—looking to finally win the Olympic medal that has eluded her in a world-class career.
There are numerous stories about Olympians who have had to fight back from injury or personal tragedy in order to compete in their chosen sport. That sort of grit, in fact, may be a key element to becoming an Olympian.
In Pikus-Pace’s case, she had all but retired after the 2010 Olympics, but like that famous line spoken by Al Pacino as Don Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, “Every time I get out, they keep on bringing me back in!”
Her return to the Olympics in Sochi actually marks her second time on the comeback trail.
She had been favored to win the gold medal at the 2006 Olympics after becoming the first U.S. woman to win the overall World Cup title in skeleton in 2004-05. Then, while watching a bobsled competition, she was struck by a sled with failed brakes. The freak accident resulted in a titanium rod being inserted in her leg.
Anyone else might have quit the sport. But the then-22-year-old Pikus-Pace was back competing within seven weeks, finishing 20th in her first event. So compelling was her comeback that it was chronicled in a documentary, 114 Days: The Race to Save a Dream. She went on to win the World Championships by the largest margin in the history of the sport the following year.
Pikus-Pace is your classic overachiever for whom there are just not enough hours in the day.
In addition to her world-renowned accomplishments in skeleton, she is a mother of two, holds a master’s in business administration and runs her own hat company, SnowFireHats.com. While in college at Utah Valley University, she was a track and field All-American who broke the UVU high-jump record and became the NJCAA national discus champion.
At the 2010 Olympics, while riding a sled designed by her husband, Janson Pace, Pikus-Pace missed out on a medal by a mere one-tenth of second. After nine years of competing, she was through, announcing her retirement in favor of spending time with her family—or so she thought.
The memory of being so close to winning a medal drove her back to the sport, and she began training again.
“I absolutely would not be here if I had medaled in Vancouver,” Pikus-Pace told The Associated Press (via The Washington Post).
She continued:
I was done. More than done. And my husband and two kids are back here and it’s fun to see them here as well. I know that everything happens for a reason, whether it’s getting hit by a bobsled going into the 2006 season, missing out on an Olympic medal by a tenth of a second or anything else life brings you, it all happens for a reason.
Now ranked second in the world, she faces a packed field of female skeleton racers of the highest order, including her archrival, Britain’s Lizzy Yarnold. Both women won four times this past season, and Yarnold may be all that stands in her way for a gold medal.
You may have seen a recent AT&T television ad featuring Pikus-Pace and her family. The online description of the ad reads like her personal mission: “Dreams come in all forms, shapes and sizes. Wake up with your dream still fresh in your mind. Follow your kids’ dreams onto the playing field. Go to bed knowing you kept the dream alive.”
Her story may sound just too good to be true, but it is a real-life depiction of the drive, the passion and the persistence it takes to succeed on the Olympic level. Should she grab the gold, stand on the podium and flash her effervescent smile reflective of the joy such a comeback produces, it will be a fitting end to her truly Olympian accomplishment.
If you're not familiar with the 2014 Olympics skeleton event, it is a high-octane, adrenaline-packed luge-style race. The twist? The athletes go down head first. This makes their helmets the most prominent accessory on display as they take a head-first plunge.
According to Olympic.org, the sport's earliest origins date back to 16th-century literature, and it can be traced as an activity to the mid-19th century. The website adds:
Men’s skeleton made two early appearances on the Olympic programme at its “ancestral” home of St. Moritz in 1928 and 1948. It was then dropped until it reappeared as a men’s and women’s event at Salt Lake City in 2002. Â
To get more accustomed to the event, take a look at this video below, courtesy of Time Magazine's YouTube account:
So far in Sochi, we have seen some amazing designs on these athletes' helmets. All are unique in their own way, but let's check out the best ones that we have come across so far.
After all, we aren't the only ones noticing.Â
5. Tomass Dukurs, Latvia
There's something so very cool about a solid black monochrome helmet. Even though this look isn't jam-packed with bright or flamboyant designs, it looks suave heading down the icy track.
While other athletes are going over the top with big, bold designs, Dukurs keeps it simple—and it works.
4. Katie Uhlaender, USA
A big bonus goes to Uhlaender here, as she sports a helmet bursting with American pride. The bald eagle with the trail of red and white stripes on a white helmet just looks sharp.
An additional print of the flag's stars on the bottom of the helmet really brings the look together.
3. Eric Neilson, Canada
One of the coolest helmets at Sochi belongs to Neilson of Canada. He boasts his Canadian pride with a maple leaf on the crown of the helmet; however, the rest of the design is absolutely awesome.
A dinosaur-looking skeleton encompasses the rest of the helmet with its teeth down by the mouth guard. The red eyes embedded into the skull gives it a perfect finish.
2. John Fairbairn, Canada
Fairbairn nails it here, as he created a helmet that has a bright, neon brain on display. It gives viewers a chic style to look at while reminding everyone just why he wears the helmet in the first place.
This is definitely one of the most original designs in the event.
1. Sarah Reid, Canada
The Canadians really have skeleton helmet designs down pat. Reid has a Gothic, Day of the Dead-style helmet that features a zombie-type face on the crown.
The helmet also includes a grouping of maple leafs around the face. The artwork here is impressive, and it gives Reid a mesmerizing look as she propels down the track.
