Seiser Alm (ck) - Under heavy snow conditions which took all of the track team and also caused delays, Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) upset all their competitors in the parallel race and raced to their 25th world cup win. They have to share this position, though, as Aleksandr Egorov/Petr Popov (RUS) share the same amount of points. “It was not even that exhausting”, said Florian Clara at the end of one of the longest days in racing history. “It was most important to stay focused at the start.” In the parallel event the time starts running when the start gate is opened after a countdown, not when the athlete leaves the start. For Patrick Pigneter, who has also been involved with the organizing team of the event, the race had a special charm: “We were not the clear favorites here, anybody could win as it also needs a bit of luck.” That at the end the top teams won shows that the conditions were fair even though it was snowing heavily all day long. Egorov/Popov were runner up the third consecutive time in a world cup race and secured their position as the new number one double in the strong Russian team. Extremely happy were Austria’s Christoph Regensburger/Dominik Holzknecht (AUT) who finished third after defeating Andrzej Laszczak/Damian Waniczek (POL), then losing to Egorov/Popov and finally winning over Pavel Porshnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS). “Our goal was to qualify for the world cup, anything more was just a bonus. It is an incredible feeling now”, said Dominik Holzknecht after their second world cup podium finish. Christoph Regensburger explained: “Most difficult was the start. We had two early starts with a penalty in the training and qualification runs, but then our routine became better and better.” The men’s and women’s second qualification runs had to be rescheduled for Sunday, 12pm. Due to the heavy snow the track had to be cleaned constantly which caused the delay. New schedule for Sunday, January 5th, 2014: 12.00pm: 2nd qualification runs for men and women 2.00pm: Round of 32 for men, round of 16 for women in the GRM World Cup 3.00pm: Nations Cup Men and Women 5.30pm: Start of round of 16 for men, round of 8 for women in the GRM World Cup 8.00pm: Medal Ceremonies Final Results Doubles GRM World Cup: 1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 2. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 3. Christoph REGENSBURGER/Dominik HOLZKNECHT (AUT) 4. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 5. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT) 6. Matic NEMC/Petra DRAGICEVIC (SLO) 7. Christian WICHAN/Oliver SCHILLER (GER) 8. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) Final Results Doubles Nations Cup: 1. Stanislav KOVSHIK/Ilya TARASOV (RUS) 2. Pavel SILIN/Iwan RODIN (RUS) 3. Rupert BRÜGGLER/Tobias ANGERER (AUT) 4. Bogdan MOROSAN/Gabriel CANDREA (ROU) World Cup Ranking (2/7): 1. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 170 1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 170 3. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT) 155 4. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 115