From Sigulda, LAT
(January 7, 2022) – Less than an hour after the men’s team of Bots and Plume broke the track record and won on home ice in Sigulda, Anda Upite and Sanija Ozolina did the same in women’s doubles.
The Latvian duo set the track record in the first heat while opening up a .102 second advantage over the United States’ Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby. On their second run the Latvians were out-slid in the heat by Italy’s Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer, but the Italians were too far back for it to matter.
Upite and Ozolina’s second quickest slide in the second heat was plenty enough to win their first gold medal of the 2022/2023 FIL World Cup season.
Forgan and Kirkby won silver, their first medal of the season. Both of the American duo’s runs were very uneventful, ideal in a sliding sport, and enough to put them ahead of world champions Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal of Germany by over a tenth.
The German duo was third, nearly .3 ahead of Vötter and Oberhofer in fourth.
Raluca Stramaturaru and Mihaela-Carmen Manolescu finished fifth, while Selina Egle and Lara Kipp crashed in their first run and finished sixth.
The American team of Summer Britcher and Emily Sweeney sat out the race to focus on women’s luge, held earlier in the day.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Upite / Ozolina | LAT | 1 | 1.631 | 1.632 | 42.435 | 42.491 | 1:24.926 |
| 2 | Forgan / Kirkby | USA | 7 | 1.633 | 1.701 | 42.537 | 42.601 | 1:25.138 |
| 3 | Degenhardt / Rosenthal | GER | 6 | 1.629 | 1.650 | 42.620 | 42.641 | 1:25.261 |
| 4 | Vötter / Oberhofer | ITA | 4 | 1.714 | 1.709 | 43.066 | 42.473 | 1:25.539 |
| 5 | Stramaturaru / Manolescu | ROU | 2 | 1.673 | 1.683 | 43.327 | 43.527 | 1:26.854 |
| 6 | Egle / Kipp | AUT | 5 | 1.994 | 2.029 | 48.620 | 43.718 | 1:32.338 |
| DNF | Stetskiv / Mokh | UKR | 3 | 1.671 | DNF |
