Matt Weston has won his second Skeleton World Cup race of the season ©IBSF

Britain's Matt Weston set a new track record on the opening day at the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Cup in Innsbruck to win the men's skeleton.

The newly-crowned world champion ended a drought of four races without a World Cup podium by cutting the gap to Germany's Christopher Grotheer down going into the final leg of the season.

Grotheer had set a difficult standard to beat, near-matching Weston's first-run lead on his second to go top of the standings with five to go.

While Yin Zheng of China and Kim Ji-soo of South Korea fell below him, he would lose the lead to China's Chen Wenhao who made it on a World Cup podium for the first time.

Jung Seung-gi grabbed the lead and kept the pressure on Weston, who held 0.2 seconds over his opponent going into run two.

Improving on what was already a great first run, Weston broke the track record with a time of 51.41sec, for a total of 1min 42.96sec.

Jung was 0.36sec behind, followed by Chen 0.49 behind and Grotheer a further 0.02 back.

The gap from Grotheer to Weston is 76 points, meaning the race is still alive, but would require a poor result in Sigulda from the German.

The Netherlands' Kimberley Bos won a topsy-turvy women's skeleton race, coming from 11th to first in the space of one run, finishing with a total time of 1:46.35.

A tightly-packed field could be attributed to this feat, with the Dutch slider only 0.30sec behind the leader Hallie Clarke from the United States after making a big mistake coming out the opening straight.

It was a mix of a fantastic second run and the top first runners faltering.

Bos set down the best second run and quickest of the day with a time of 52.87, while Clarke's second run was only eighth, dropping her down to second, 0.28 behind.

Consistency for Kim Meylemens of Belgium got her the bronze, moving up from fifth to third, 0.33 off Bos.

Austrian Janine Flock dropped out of the medals by just 0.02, finishing fourth, joint with Mirela Rahneva of Canada.

Britain's Laura Deas jumped from 13th to sixth, while China's Zhao Dan dropped from second to eighth.

Bos is just 27 points behind Germany's Tina Hermann going into the final race of the season.

Rahneva is another 31 points behind.