Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal star as Germany dominate day one at World Luge Championships

BySportsbeat

Updated 27/01/2023 at 18:08 GMT

The Germans were expected to make a fast start to the World Luge Championships in Oberhof, but the extent of their success was almost unprecedented. Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal won the inaugural women's sprint doubles title, while Felix Loch and Dajana Eitberger took the men and women sprint gongs respectively to put their rivals in the shade.

Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal of Germany pose for a picture during the flower ceremony of the women's single sprint of the FIL Luge World Cup at Olympia-Eiskanal Igels on December 04, 2022 in Innsbruck, Austria

Image credit: Getty Images

Germany took the spoils on day one of the World Luge Championships scooping four gold medals from four finals in Oberhof.

Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal won the inaugural women's sprint doubles title, while Felix Loch and Dajana Eitberger took the men and women sprint gongs respectively.

The Germans were favourites coming into their home championships, having won all four golds at Beijing 2022.

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And their domination was emphatic once more, with eight of the 12 medals on offer claimed by the hosts.

The women's sprint saw a clean sweep with compatriots Eitberger, Julia Taubitz and Anna Berreiter, and there was a one-two in the men's sprint double as Sascha Benecken/Toni Eggert and Tobias Arlt/Tobias Wendl continued their fine form this season.

Eitberger leads Taubitz in the overall women's singles World Cup standings by five points and it could not have been any closer for the world title - just 0.001 second separated the pair.

It was almost as tight in the women's sprint doubles with just over two hundredths of a second separating first from Italy's Andrea Votter/Marion Oberhofer in third.

Austria's Jonas Muller stunned the field to finish a season's best second in the men's sprint, though it was not enough to topple Loch who leads the men's singles standings. - - -

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