CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 13 (Reuters) - 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 go out first. "Bib number one was definitely a good choice," she said. "I was a bit surprised that nobody else wanted it – I definitely did. It’s wonderful to be able to open an Olympic race with start number one.
"Now the strong German women are chasing me, it will be very, very exciting. But that’s competition, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow."
Britain, with three gold, a silver and two bronze medals, are the most successful nation since women's skeleton joined the Olympics in 2002 and they are also just about in the hunt through Tabitha Stoecker (fifth) and Freya Tarbit (sixth) but they would need everything to go their way to make the podium.
Belgium's Kim Meylemans, the overall World Cup champion, looked off the pace in training all week and could not find any improvement on Friday and sits eighth. World champion and 2022 bronze medallist Kimberley Bos of the Netherlands is also completely out of it in 13th - 1.38 seconds behind the leader.
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Christian Radnedge)
