Digital Citizen

Jon Montgomery

Jon Montgomery of Russell, Manitoba took home gold for Canada in the Men’s Skeleton at the Olympics in a stunning come back victory! He edged out Martin Dukurs of Latvia by a mere 7 hundredths of a second, but trailed by 51 hundredths of a second coming in. Jon’s final time was 3:29.73, the sum of his four runs, and Martin’s time was 3:29.80.

Jon was in 2nd place after 3 runs of the skeleton when he threw off a near perfect fourth run that was not matched by Martin Dukurs from Latvia on his respective fourth run. Dukurs had two tiny slips in the final Thunderbird stretch of the track and that was where Dukurs lost the first place he had coming in.

Alexander Tretyakov from Russia finished third.

Of course, what made the whole thing exciting was that the fastest skeleton-er (what do you call those guys?) went last, so it came down to the last skeletoner. That’s what I’m going to call them! Jon was second last and brought his game. Martin did, too, to be honest, but it just wasn’t good enough tonight in a great battle right to the last hundredth of a second in a thrilling finish!

By the way, that little patch of gold on Jon’s helmet barely visible in the picture, is part of the symbol of a turtle. That’s the fastest turtle the world might have ever seen!

Congratulations, Jon, and O CANADA!

A note of condolence to Melissa Hollingsworth of Canada, though, in the women’s skeleton. She was in second place after three runs like Jon, but faltered to fall to fifth overall. She was a gold medal favourite. Failing would not only have been hard for her, but it would have been harder on Canadian soil at the Olympics given what was within her reach. Now it just got harder her counterpart stepped up to win gold with the same situation after three runs of four. Take good care of yourself, Melissa. We’re still all very proud of you!

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 6.3