From Altenberg, GER
(January 11, 2025) – The easy part of describing the Altenberg men’s doubles race: Martins Bots and Roberts Plume took the lead in the first heat and held their position to beat Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt in Altenberg.
With that out of the way, the rest of the race was low-key chaos.
Bots and Plume led Austria’s Yannick Müller and Armin Frauscher after the first heat, with Wendl and Arlt in third place. Behind them Ivan Nagler and Fabian Malleier were trying to replicate teammate Dominik Fischnaller’s effort earlier in the day where he slid to Italy’s first singles or doubles medal of the season.
Before the Italians could try to get to the medals, Austrian’s Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl took their second run. They hadn’t finished outside of the top four all season, but had trouble in their first run. But their second was the fastest of the heat and second quickest of the competition.
From there, Steu and Kindl watched team after team try to unseat them. But either teams weren’t just quite as quick, or in the case of Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schöpf, had big trouble out of either Curve 9 or Curve 14.
The Austrians got as high as fourth place, one of the larger climbs the tour had seen in a non-weather affected race in quite some time. The final spot they grabbed belonged to Nagler and Malleier, who had all sorts of trouble and fell to tenth, effectively swapping spots with the Austrians.
Wendl and Arlt eventually took over in the leaders’ box from Steu and Kindl to guarantee Germany a team on the podium.
Müller and Frauscher were .054 ahead of Wendl and Arlt going into the second heat. The duo were outstarted by the Germans by a tenth. Midway through their run the Austrians looked to have the Germans covered, but fell behind by .008 at the finish line, putting themselves no worse than bronze.
Bots and Plume did not get the memo that the race was supposed to be close and crazy. The duo had the second quickest run of the heat, second only to Steu and Kindl, and slid to a .123 second victory over Wendl and Arlt, with Müller and Frauscher third and Steu and Kindl fourth.
The win for the Latvians was their second victory and fourth medal in five races in the 2024/2025 season.
Hannes Orlamünder and Paul Gubitz tagged along with Steu and Kindl on their climb and jumped from eighth to fifth in the second heat, .006 ahead of Americans Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa, who rounded out the top six.
Americans Zack Digregorio and Sean Hollander finished eighth, up from ninth in the first heat.
After five races in the 2024/2025 World Cup season, Bots and Plume lead Wendl and Arlt, with Toni Eggert and Florian Müller third. Steu and Kindl are the top team without a win in fourth, ahead of Müller and Frauscher in fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | Start 1 | Start 2 | Run 1 | Run 2 | Total |
| 1 | Bots / Plume | LAT | 10 | 5.773 | 5.760 | 41.879 | 42.021 | 1:23.900 |
| 2 | Wendl / Arlt | GER | 13 | 5.739 | 5.743 | 41.983 | 42.040 | 1:24.023 |
| 3 | Müller / Frauscher | AUT | 15 | 5.766 | 5.813 | 41.929 | 42.102 | 1:24.031 |
| 4 | Steu / Kindl | AUT | 14 | 5.791 | 5.810 | 42.358 | 41.895 | 1:24.253 |
| 5 | Orlamünder / Gubitz | GER | 12 | 5.793 | 5.776 | 42.190 | 42.209 | 1:24.399 |
| 6 | Mueller / Haugsjaa | USA | 7 | 5.800 | 5.856 | 42.093 | 42.312 | 1:24.405 |
| 7 | Eggert / Müller | GER | 11 | 5.797 | 5.772 | 42.100 | 42.374 | 1:24.474 |
| 8 | Digregorio / Hollander | USA | 5 | 5.821 | 5.824 | 42.291 | 42.400 | 1:24.691 |
| 9 | Rieder / Kainzwaldner | ITA | 9 | 5.809 | 5.808 | 42.385 | 42.314 | 1:24.699 |
| 10 | Nagler / Malleier | ITA | 6 | 5.758 | 5.751 | 42.005 | 42.716 | 1:24.721 |
| 11 | Sevics-Mikelsevics / Babris | LAT | 2 | 5.865 | 5.868 | 42.466 | 42.684 | 1:25.150 |
| 12 | Jubayi / Hou | CHN | 16 | 5.938 | 5.827 | 42.896 | 42.536 | 1:25.432 |
| 13 | Wardrope / Zajanski | CAN | 3 | 5.809 | 5.817 | 42.944 | 42.584 | 1:25.528 |
| 14 | Handaric / Motzca | ROU | 17 | 5.945 | 5.930 | 42.723 | 42.877 | 1:25.600 |
| 15 | Gatt / Schöpf | AUT | 4 | 5.777 | 5.786 | 42.167 | 43.478 | 1:25.645 |
| 16 | Chmilewski / Kowalewski | POL | 8 | 5.862 | 5.814 | 42.643 | 43.030 | 1:25.673 |
| 17 | Baltgalvis / Jakseboga | LAT | 21 | 5.928 | 5.934 | 43.399 | 42.862 | 1:26.261 |
| 18 | Hoi / Kachmar | UKR | 18 | 5.931 | 43.410 | |||
| 19 | Gitlan / Serban | ROU | 20 | 5.941 | 43.546 | |||
| 20 | Panchuk / Muts | UKR | 19 | 5.917 | 43.812 | |||
| 21 | Bosman / Mick | SVK | 22 | 5.932 | 44.043 | |||
| DNS | Vavercak / Zmij | SVK | 1 | 5.835 | 42.643 | DNS |