Zack DiGregorio, Sean Hollander win U.S.' first doubles luge World Cup since 2005
Zack DiGregorio and Sean Hollander became the first U.S. doubles luge team to win a World Cup race in 18 years on Friday.
DiGregorio and Hollander prevailed at the season opener in Lake Placid, New York.
They were in second place after the first of two runs, then overtook first-run leaders Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl of Austria in the second run to prevail by 52 thousandths of a second.
The last time a U.S. doubles team won a World Cup race was in December 2005, when Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin earned their 11th victory together.
DiGregorio, 22, and Hollander, 23, teamed up in 2020, then made the 2022 Olympic team in a U.S. race-off. They placed 11th at the Games, then seventh at the January 2023 World Championships. Their best World Cup finish before Friday was fourth.
Germans Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt and Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken combined to win all but one of the Olympic, world championship and World Cup season titles over the last decade.
Wendl and Arlt placed fifth on Friday. Eggert and Benecken retired after last season.
