While the Australian Institute of Sport’s women’s skeleton squad has been attracting great interest, two Australian male sliders have also begun their World Cup campaigns in Europe with strong results.

Shaun Boyle finished a very impressive 19th place in the opening event in Winterberg, Germany, in a field of 43 sliders.

Fellow Aussie Urs Vescoli was in 27th place.

Jeff Pain of Canada won the opening event in a combined two run time of 1 minute 56.49 seconds from Gregor Staehli of Switzerland and Chris Soule of the United States.

Boyle was 1.46 seconds behind the winner.

Boyle was 24th in the World Skeleton Championships last season, and on his form in the opening World Cup event, should be looking to improve on that at the 2005 world titles early next year.