“I wasn’t expecting to win, but I’ll take it,” Holcomb said. “It clicked with me this week, and things were going well during training, and in the race.”

Holcomb and Lueders were separated by only one-hundredth of a second after the first heat with times of 53.18 and 53.17 respectively, making for a tight race on the difficult Cortina track.

“The track was very difficult this year,” Holcomb said. “It was harder to drive well and to be fast.”

Despite challenges on the track, Holcomb drove his sled into first position on the second run with a 53.25 for a combined total time of 1:46.43. Four-hundredths behind for the silver was team Lueders with a second run of 53.30 for a combined time of 1:46.47.

In third was the Czech Republic team of Ivo Danilevic and Roman Gomola with a total time of 1:46.89 (53.45, 53.44).

“Steve is driving really well, and I’m looking forward to the four-man competition tomorrow,” Kreitzburg said. “Steve Mesler and Pavle Jovanovic will join the team tomorrow, so I expect we’ll have two great pushes in addition to Steve’s excellent driving.”

Four-man competition begins tomorrow in Cortina, Italy at 9:00 CET.