CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Matt Weston doesn't always win. It only seems that way.

And at the Milan Cortina Olympics, the 28-year-old slider from Britain left no doubt — he's the best skeleton racer in the world.

Capping a four-year run that featured one remarkable finish after another, Weston won the men's skeleton gold medal on a frosty Friday night in Cortina d'Ampezzo. He finished four runs over two days in 3 minutes, 43.33 seconds, posting a track-record time in all four of those heats and building an almost-insurmountable lead going into a final slide that became a victory lap.

He broke into tears when it was over, then hugged one of his coaches — Latvian great Martins Dukurs, the 2014 Olympic champion. Dukurs was long considered the world's best; that title now belongs to Weston.

“I expect every time I stand at the top of the start line, I’m going there for one reason and one reason only," Weston said. "And that’s to win.”

Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the event before it started because of his insistence on wearing a helmet that paid tribute to more than 20 coaches and athletes from his country who were killed following Russia’s invasion four years ago. Heraskevych got the ruling that he couldn’t race Thursday, about 45 minutes before the start of the competition, then had his appeal denied by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after a hearing in Milan on Friday.

Had he raced, Heraskevych might have been a medal contender. But beating Weston would have been an extremely tall task.

Germany got silver and bronze, with Axel Jungk and Christopher Grotheer now two-time Olympic medalists. Jungk, the silver medalist in 2022, was second again in 3:44.21; Grotheer, the gold medalist four years ago, was third in 3:44.40.

For the U.S., Austin Florian was 12th and Dan Barefoot was 20th. Florian will race for the U.S. in the mixed skeleton event on Sunday; he and Mystique Ro are the reigning world champions in that competition.

Weston was 15th at the 2022 Beijing Olympics — and has been the dominant force in men's skeleton ever since. Before this week, he had 34 races at the World Cup or world championship level since those Beijing Games.

He medaled in 28 of them, winning 15 times. Put another way, he has been no worse than third in 82% of those races and finished first 54% of the time.

It's absolute dominance.

“I think I’m a massive perfectionist," Weston said. “That kind of manifests itself in a lot of ways in my life. But in skeleton, sometimes when I win, I’m annoyed because I haven’t won correctly.”

There was nothing not to like about this one. He's a three-time World Cup champion, a two-time world champion and now, Olympic champion.

Weston becomes Britain's third skeleton gold medalist: Amy Williams won at the 2010 Vancouver Games, then Lizzy Yarnold went back-to-back in 2014 and 2018.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych will be allowed to wear a black armband in competition at the Milan Cortina Games, the International Olympic Committee said Tuesday, but not the helmet he wanted to commemorate the lives of some athletes from his country who were killed in the war with Russia.

The IOC called the move a compromise.

“I think what we’ve tried to do is to address his desires with compassion and understanding,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday. “He has expressed himself on social media and in the training and, as you know, we will not stop him expressing himself in press conferences, as he leaves competition in the mixed zone and elsewhere. We feel that this is a good compromise in the situation.”

Heraskevych said the IOC told him Monday night that he could not wear the helmet that shows the faces of several Ukrainian athletes who have been killed since 2022, because Olympic officials decided it broke the rule banning political statements.

Heraskevych — who was fourth at last year's world championships and is generally considered a medal hopeful at these games — has more training runs scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, and he is expected to compete in the Olympic men's skeleton race Thursday.

It was not immediately clear if he would wear the armband. The IOC also pointed out that it has banned armbands in the past, but is willing to make an exception in Heraskevych's case. The move by the IOC doesn't mean all athletes can wear armbands, and if Heraskevych chooses to do so, it can not include any text, Adams said.

“We didn’t violate any rules, and it should be allowed for me to compete with this helmet,” Heraskevych told The Associated Press on Monday, before Ukrainian sliding officials met with a representative from the IOC and learned the helmet would not be allowed. “I cannot understand how this helmet hurt anyone. It’s to pay tribute to athletes and some of them were medalists in the Youth Olympic Games. That means they’re Olympic family. They were part of this Olympic family, so I cannot understand they would find a reason why not.”

Figure skater Dmytro Sharpar, a onetime Youth Olympic Games teammate of Heraskevych, is on the helmet, as are boxer Pavlo Ishchenko, hockey player Oleksiy Loginov and others. Some, Heraskevych said, were killed on the front lines; at least one died while trying to distribute aid to fellow Ukrainians.

Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in on Heraskevych’s quest, with a post on his Instagram page saying that he wanted to thank the slider for “reminding the world the price of our struggle.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics