Moscow (ck) In the double seaters event they took everything but gold. This was won by the cousins Wolfgang and Andreas Schopf (AUT). It was just here in Moscow three years ago where they celebrated their first World Cup victory as the kick off of their incredible and still young career. Overall World Cup victory and two World Champion titles followed. This season it has been their first win in the World Cup. "It was an extraordinary feeling to beat the strong Russians just here in Russia," they said. The Russian double Porschev/Lazarev had won the last two World Cups and now only 35 points lay between them in the overall ranking. "It is going to be tough," Wolfgang Schopf said, "but I think if we improve the way we did within the last races, we do have a chance." The Schopf cousins already prepared their party which will be held in Austrian style: "We brought a whole box of speck and Austrian pork, we have been to Russia a couple of times now and we know that we are no big fans of Russian food."

Results of Thursday:

Doubles:

1. Wolfgang Schopf/Andreas Schopf (AUT), 41,20 (1), 40,93 (2), 1:22,13
2. Pawel Porschnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS), 41.39 (4), 40,90 (1), 1:22,29
3. Denis Alimov/Roman Molistov (RUS), 41,37 (3), 41,17 (3), 1:22,54
4. Reinhard Beer/Herbert Koegl (AUT), 41,39 (4), 41,22 (4), 1:22,61
5. Armin Mair/Johannes Hofer (ITA), 41,36 (2), 41,30 (5), 1:22,66
6. Petr Popov/Aleksandr Egorov (RUS), 41,59 (6), 41,33 (6), 1:22,92
7. Harald Kleinhofer/Gerhard Muehlbacher (AUT), 41,87 (7), 44,13 (7),1:26,00
8. Jury Hartsula/Anatoliy Hurtin (UKR), 49,96 (8), 48,17 (8), 1:38,13