Doubles, Open

This competition was wide open, as former Olympic champion and East Germany’s coach Klaus-Michael Bonsack commented: “eight to ten of the crews can win a medal”. This included the reigning World Champions Jörg Hoffmann/Jochen Pietzsch (GDR), the newly crowned European Champions Helmuth and Walter Brunner and the current World Cup champions, Hansjörg Raffl and Norbert Huber (both ITA). The pre-Olympics held in February 1983 have been won by the Austrians Fluckinger/Wilhelmer in 1:23.667 followed by Belyakov/Belousov and Lemmerer/Sulzbacher.

Competition was very close and after one run, the Soviet couple of Aleksandr Belyakov and Yevgeny Belousov led by 0.067 seconds over the West Germans, Franz Wembacher and Hans Stanggassinger. While the Germans had medalled before at international tournaments, the Soviets were yet unheralded. They were close to winning the gold medal in the second run, but made a minor error close to the finish line. This cost them one tenth of a second, enough to drop down to second place. The difference between first and second, 0.040 seconds, was the smallest since two duos had tied for first place in 1972. The gold medal for Wembacher and Stanggassinger was the first ever in Olympic luge for West Germany.