Germany reign supreme at Luge World Championships once again

The quartet of Julia Taubitz, Johannes Ludwig and Toni Eggert/Sascha Benecken held off the Latvian team on the Russian ice, triumphing by a margin of 0.321s to ensure they have now won every team relay bar once since the event's introduction in 2008.

The USA team clinched the final spot on the podium as they stopped the clock in 2m44.557s to beat Italy by 0.5s, but it was a tale of German hegemony once again as a stellar team performance saw them dominate the discipline for yet another year.

Taubitz got the ball rolling with a searing time of 53.277s, followed up by Ludwig who finished his leg with just 1m48.616s on the clock.

And the Eggert and Benecken combination saw the team home in a time of 2m44.213s, capping off a deserved victory after they led the event throughout.

Home favourite Roman Repilov sent the home crowd into raptures in the men's singles as he was crowned world champion, beating the Austrian duo of Jonas Muller and Wolfgang Kindl with a time of 1m43.099s.

It was a tightly-contested encounter in Russia, however, as Muller stopped the clock in 1m43.131s to miss out on the ultimate prize by just 0.032s.

23-year-old Repilov was able to capitalise on Muller's slow first run - where he was only able to muster the fourth fastest time - as the Russian showed greater consistency to romp home to the title.

Sportsbeat 2020