Jon Montgomery closes the gap on Dukurs

 CANADA's Jon Montgomery raised home spirits to close the gap on Latvia leader Martins Dukurs after the third skeleton run at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

EDGING CLOSER: Canada's Jon Montgomery has clsed the gap on leader Martins Dukurs with just one run to go (Getty Images)

Montgomery, having seen fellow home slider and pre-race favourite, Mellisa Hollingsworth, shunted into fifth in the women's competition as Great Britain's Amy Williams took gold, clocked 52.20 seconds - the fastest run of the field.

Dukurs, who sliced more than a second off the track record with his opening run on Thursday, was 0.08 slower but maintains a 0.18 advantage heading into the final run.

Meanwhile, time is running out for Kristan Bromley, who posted 52.70 - his fastest run to date - but he slipped into sixth place and is now 0.45 behind third-placed Alexander Tretyakov of Russia.

Bromley was placed fifth over night, just 0.05 five behind the Russian but has work to do if he is to collect an Olympic medal.

"It's difficult because I'm trying to stay positive and keep plugging away but things aren't just happening at the moment," he said.

"The conditions are a bit different today and I didn't adjust as well as I wanted but there's one more run and I'll be giving it everything."

Austria's Matthias Guggenberger, fourth after the first too runs, slipped out of medal contention and into eighth while Tomass Dukurs, older brother of Martins, and the USA's Zach Lund both leapfrogged Bromley to lie fourth and fifth respectively.

Meanwhile, Canada's Michael Douglas was disqualified for turning up too late for the official inspection - much to the disappointment of the home crowd.

 

AS IT HAPPENS: Day eight of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver