The doubles competition in luge at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 9 February, at the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh and Luge Track in Yanqing District, China. Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt of Germany, the 2014 and 2018 champions, won the event again. The 2018 bronze medalists, Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken, won the silver medal. Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller of Austria won the bronze, their first Olympic medal.
The 2018 silver medalists, Peter Penz and Georg Fischler, retired from competitions. Eggert and Benneken were leading the 2021–22 Luge World Cup before the Olympics, with Wendl and Arlt second. The two pairs were considered to be the prime gold contenders. Andris Šics and Juris Šics, the bronze medalists of the 2014 Olympics, were consistent though the 2021/2022 season and were standing third in the World Cup before the Olympics. In the race, they finished fifth.
Qualification
The qualification is based on the cumulative points of the Olympic Season from 1 July 2021 to January 10, 2022. A total of 36 (18 pairs) quota spots are available to athletes to compete at the games. Each NOC can enter a maximum of three athletes.
In the doubles, all nations with a pair in the top 25 qualified one slot. If there were remaining spots left, the second best sled of each nation in the top 28 was awarded an additional quota, if there were any remaining spots.
On December 17, 2021, the International Luge Federation announced that the qualification system was changed. The qualification system was changed due to training runs being cancelled at the first World Cup, and equipment not being delivered to the following World Cups. The new system saw athletes qualify based on their top four results during the World Cup season, (as opposed to the previous all seven results counting).
On January 19, 2022, the International Luge Federation announced the list of qualified athletes.
Summary Number of sledsAthletes totalNation216120 18 36
Results The second qualified sled from Austria did not start. Rank Bib Athlete Country Run 1 Rank Run 2 Rank TotalFinal results Behind 5 Tobias WendlTobias Arlt 58.255 TR 1 58.299 1 1:56.554 2 Toni EggertSascha Benecken 58.300 2 58.353 2 1:56.653 +0.099 11 Thomas SteuLorenz Koller 58.426 3 58.639 3 1:57.065 +0.511 4 3 Mārtiņš BotsRoberts Plūme 58.628 5 58.791 5 1:57.419 +0.865 5 1 Andris ŠicsJuris Šics 58.703 6 58.734 4 1:57.437 +0.883 6 4 Emanuel RiederSimon Kainzwaldner 58.602 4 58.995 7 1:57.597 +1.043 7 10 Tristan WalkerJustin Snith 58.895 7 59.023 8 1:57.918 +1.364 8 8 Alexander DenisyevVladislav Antonov 59.040 9 58.953 6 1:57.993 +1.439 9 7 Wojciech ChmielewskiJakub Kowalewski 58.992 8 59.073 9 1:58.065 +1.511 10 6 Andrei BogdanovYuri Prokhorov 59.376 11 59.132 11 1:58.508 +1.954 11 15 Zack DiGregorioSean Hollander 59.389 12 59.126 10 1:58.515 +1.961 12 12 Park Jin-yongCho Jung-myung 59.361 10 59.366 12 1:58.727 +2.173 13 9 Tomáš VaverčákMatej Zmij 15 59.704 13 1:59.842 +3.288 14 13 Vasile GîtlanDarius Şerban 59.694 13 16 1:59.937 +3.383 15 14 Ihor StakhivAndrii Lysetskyi 59.983 14 15 2:00.063 +3.509 16 17 Filip VejdělekZdeněk Pěkný 16 59.869 14 2:00.117 +3.563 17 16 Huang YeboPeng Junyue 17 17 2:01.572 +5.018
References