From Sigulda, LAT
(January 4, 2025) – Sigulda has not always been good to the Austrians over the years, but in the first race of the new year, Selina Egle and Lara Kipp slid to victory in Latvia.
Clean runs were hard to come by in the first heat, but Egle and Kipp were able to throw down a clean run in the first heat to take a sizeable lead over Latvians Marta Robezniece and Kitija Bogdanova, with the American team of Chevonne Forgan and Sophie Kirkby lingering in third.
In the second heat it was Forgan and Kirkby who thew down the quick time with a track record 42.106 to put the pressure on the two teams ahead of them.
Up next were the Latvians. Robezniece and Bogdanova were clean up top with their run, but a bad exit out of Curve 14 dropped them behind the Americans but into second with the Austrians still to go.
Egle and Kipp didn’t need to be perfect with their second run, just clean. They had a nearly two tenths advantage over the Americans off the top,and while their second run wasn’t the track record pace set by Forgan and Kirkby, it was enough to slide to victory to open the 2025 calendar year, with Forgan and Kirkby second and Robezniece and Bogdanova third.
The win was the third straight for the Austrians, while the silver for Forgan and Kirkby were their third medal of the 2024/2025 campaign.
For the Latvians, bronze matched a season’s best set earlier in the year in Sigulda.
Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer were yet again held off the podium as they finished fourth for the third straight race. Latvians Anda Upite and Zane Kaluma were fifth, while Germans Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal rounded out the top six.
After four races in the 2024/2025 season, Egle and Kipp lead by 40 points over Forgan and Kirkby. Degenhardt and Rosenthal are just five points behind the Americans in third, with Robezniece and Bogdanova fourth and Vötter and Oberhofer fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Egle / Kipp | AUT | 7 | 1.689 | 1.703 | 42.297 | 42.186 | 1:24.483 |
| 2 | Forgan / Kirkby | USA | 8 | 1.631 | 1.627 | 42.493 | 42.106 | 1:24.599 |
| 3 | Robezniece / Bogdanova | LAT | 9 | 1.636 | 1.635 | 42.408 | 42.486 | 1:24.894 |
| 4 | Vötter / Oberhofer | ITA | 5 | 1.640 | 1.628 | 42.665 | 42.271 | 1:24.936 |
| 5 | Upite / Kaluma | LAT | 10 | 1.650 | 1.635 | 42.719 | 42.507 | 1:25.226 |
| 6 | Degenhardt / Rosenthal | GER | 6 | 1.676 | 1.674 | 43.027 | 42.318 | 1:25.345 |
| 7 | Stetskiv / Mokh | UKR | 3 | 1.726 | 1.702 | 43.612 | 42.919 | 1:26.531 |
| 8 | Falkensteiner / Huber | ITA | 4 | 1.727 | 1.681 | 43.836 | 43.841 | 1:27.677 |
| DNF | Domowicz / Piwkowska | POL | 2 | 1.788 | 1.774 | 43.705 | DNF | |
| DNF | Eitberger / Matschina | GER | 1 | 1.650 | DNF |