Russia take doubles and team relay Luge victories in Winterberg

Denisev and Antonov won in a time of 1m33.622s ahead of Latvia's Oskars Gudramovics and Peteris Kalnins.

Polish pairing Wojciech Chmielewski and Jakub Kowalewski secured their first World Cup podium finish in third.

Safety concerns saw the top two in the overall standings, the German doubles teams of world champions Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken and two-time Olympic champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, both not compete.

"The win was pretty easy because the top teams weren't competing today," Denisev said.

"We are looking forward to the challenge with the other duos at Konigssee."

Meanwhile, European champions Russia claimed their second win of the season in the team relay.

The squad of Tatyana Ivanova, Semen Pavlichenko and Aleksandr Denisev/Vladislav Antonov finished in a time of 2m36.848s.

Italy finished almost half a second back in second with Latvia completing the podium in third.

With one event to go Italy lead the overall standings on 395 points with Russia second on 361 and Latvia third on 320.

Sportsbeat 2020