Doubles, Open

Germany’s strength in depth was shown by the fact that although the reigning World Championship gold medallists, André Florschütz and Torsten Wustlich, were denied a place on the Olympic team, but the two German pairs were still considered gold medal favourites.

The big question of the 2002 Olympic luge doubles concerned whether the home track advantage of the American pairs would be enough to topple the Europeans and earn a first US Olympic gold in the sport. The answer was to be no but the margin of victory for the German pair of Alexander Resch and Patric Leitner was small. Resch and Leitner, the 2004 world champions, set the best time of the first run with Clay Ives and Chris Thorpe leading US teammates, the Mark Grimmette / Brian Martin combination, for second and third. The Americans were both faster than the German leaders over the final run but not by enough to overhaul them for the gold medal. Grimmette and Martin were fast enough to put themselves ahead of their compatriots and into the silver medal position.