From Winterberg, GER
(December 5, 2025) – Germany slid to gold in the first race of the 2025/2026 FIL World Cup season, edging out Austria in the mixed doubles event in Winterberg.
The Germany-2 teams of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt and Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal took the lead from the ninth starting position after they edged out Austrian teams of Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl with Selina Egle and Lara Kipp by just .o71.
Up next were the Austria-1 team of Yannick Müller, Armin Frauscher with Lina Riedl and Anna Lerch. They were unable to keep pace with the Latvian team in third place and were edged out at the line by just .08 to sit fourth with one team to go.
That team was the Germany-1 team led off by Toni Eggert and Florian Müller. Things were going well early for the duo, but a skid into Curve 13 left them very late out, and the team went over and were unable to get to the paddle, leaving Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina at the top.
The crash secured gold for their German teammates, with Austria in second. The Latvian squad of Martins Bots, Robets Plume, Anda Upite and Madara Pavlova took third, with the second Austrian team in fourth. Italy and Poland rounded out the top six.
Missing from the World Cup race were the Americans, as well as the top Italian sliders. With the race in Winterberg a last-minute fill-in for Igls and now a second race on the German track, the races this weekend do not count toward Olympic qualification. So with that, many athletes have chosen to either travel to the United States to get a head start on World Cup races there or to train in Italy in preparation for the Olympics.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Men | Women/Total |
| 1 | Wendl & Arlt / Degenhardt & Rosenthal | GER-2 | 9 | 45.796 | 1:34.470 |
| 2 | Steu & Kindl / Egle & Kipp | AUT-2 | 4 | 45.789 | 1:34.541 |
| 3 | Bots & Plume / Upite & Pavlova | LAT-2 | 3 | 45.863 | 1:35.078 |
| 4 | Müller & Frauscher / Reidl & Lerch | AUT-1 | 10 | 46.047 | 1:35.158 |
| 5 | Brunner & Weissensteiner / Falkensteiner & Huber | ITA | 8 | 46.398 | 1:35.810 |
| 6 | Chmielewski & Gancarczyk / Domowicz & Piwkowskia | POL | 2 | 46.161 | 1:35.869 |
| 7 | Sevics-Mikelsevics & Krasts / Robezniece & Bogdanova | LAT-1 | 7 | 45.991 | 1:36.071 |
| 8 | Hoi & Kachmar / Stetskiv & Mokh | UKR | 6 | 46.798 | 1:36.371 |
| 9 | Gitlan & Serban / Stramaturaru & Manolescu | ROU | 5 | 46.806 | 1:37.032 |
| 10 | Vavercak & Zmij / Praxova & Spitzova | SVK | 1 | 46.262 | 1:37.682 |
| DNF | Eggert & Müller / Eitberger & Matschina | GER-1 | 11 | DNF | DNF |