Olang (ck) - The numbers speak a clear language. The current situation in the doubles’ World Cup could not be described any better: in the overall ranking Patrick Pigneter/Florian Clara (ITA) and Pavel Porshnev/Ivan Lazarev (RUS) are tied at the first position with 185 points each. A crash in Friday’s training could not stop the World Champions from Russia and they won the race in Olang with a thin margin of eight hundredths of a second ahead of Pigneter/Clara. “We saw the local doctor here yesterday and he cleared us for the race today. My back still hurts and Pavel has some pain in his ribs. We have not slept a lot and we had to work hard on our sled. We had to replace runners and blades”, said Lazarev and adds: “But the race was ok. The first run was not ideal, because the weather conditions changed over night, but our second run was really good.” Florian Clara knows why the Russians were ahead of them: “Without the mistakes we made, winning would have been possible. But we had two huge mistakes in our first run and we have to be happy with this result, because with those mistakes it could have come worse.” Ready to take part in the head-to-head fight at the top of the field are Christian Schatz/Gerhard Mühlbacher (AUT) who finished third for the second time in the two races of the season: “We had a lot of small mistakes and today we have not been 100 percent synchronized, but we have some potential left. We are nowhere at our top performance yet, it’s a lot of tiny details missing, but we are getting there. In near future we will be ready to attack the two leading doubles”, said Mühlbacher. Men as well as women held one of their two runs today, Saturday, with the final runs following on Sunday. In the men’s event a breathtaking final can be expected as the first nine athletes are ranked within 78 hundredths of a second. Canada’s Kaj Johnson gave a remarkable life-sign by beating the reigning World Champion Gerald Kammerlander (AUT) and fighting with experienced lugers like Gernot Schwab and Robert Batkowski (both AUT) for places. For the team event which will be held for the first time as a part of the world cup, five teams have entered. Other than in World or European Championships, only one team per nation is allowed and teams cannot be mixed between two nations. Final Result World Cup Doubles (14): 1. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS), 1:12,09(1), 1:11,69(2), 2:23,78 2. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:12,18(2), 1:11,68(1), 2:23,86 3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT), 1:12,24(4), 1:12,48(3), 2:24,72 4. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL), 1:12,19(3), 1.12,84(5), 2:25,03 5. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER), 1:12,40(5), 1:12,81(4), 2:25,21 6. Hannes CLARA/Stefan GRUBER (ITA), 1:12,40(5), 1:12,86(6), 2:25,26 7. Thomas SCHOPF/Andreas SCHÖPF (AUT), 1:12,59(7), 1:12,94(8), 2:25,53 8. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT), 1:12,74(8), 1:12,87(7), 2:25,61 9. Christoph REGENSBURGER/Dominik HOLZKNECHT (AUT), 2:26,54 10. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS), 2:26,88 Women’s intermediate ranking after one run (18): 1. Ekatharina LAVRENTJEVA (RUS), 1:08,40(1), 2. Renate GIETL (ITA), 1:09,24(2), 3. Melanie SCHWARZ (ITA), 1:09,65(3), 4. Evelin LANTHALER (ITA), 1:09,80(4), 5. Michaela MAURER (GER), 1: 10,29(5), 6. Tamara SCHWARZ (ITA), 1:10,39(6), 7. Ludmila AKSENENKO (RUS), 1:10,53(7), 8. Marlies WAGNER (AUT), 1:11,00(8), 9. Tina UNTERBERGER (AUT), 1:11.09(9), 10. Carmen PLANÖTSCHER (ITA), 1:11,61(10), Men’s intermediate ranking after one run (34): 1. Patrick PIGNETER (ITA), 1:08,06(1), 2. Hannes CLARA (ITA), 1:08,13(2), 3. Alex GRUBER (ITA), 1:08,41(3), 4. Florian CLARA (ITA), 1:08,46(4), 5. Stanislav KOVSHIK (RUS), 1:08,52(5), 6. Anton BLASBICHLER (ITA), 1:08,75(6), 7. Michael SCHEIKL (AUT), 1:08,76(7), 8. Adam JEDRZEJKO (POL), 1:08,81(8), 9. Rudi RESCH (ITA), 1:08,84(9), 10. Patrick SALCHER (AUT), 1:09,16(10), 11. Juri TALIKH (RUS), 1:09,31(11), 12. Robert BATKOWSKI (AUT), 1:09,39(12), 13. Gernot SCHWAB (AUT), 1:09,47(13), 13. Kaj JOHNSON (CAN), 1:09,47(13), 15. Gerald KAMMERLANDER (AUT), 1:09,58 World Cup Ranking Doubles (2/6): 1. Pavel PORSHNEV/Ivan LAZAREV (RUS) 185 points 1. Patrick PIGNETER/Florian CLARA (ITA) 185 3. Christian SCHATZ/Gerhard MÜHLBACHER (AUT) 140 4. Andrzej LASZCZAK/Damian WANICZEK (POL) 115 5. Christian SCHOPF/Andreas SCHOPF (AUT) 102 6. Björn KIERSPEL/Christian WICHAN (GER) 101 7. Thomas SCHOPF/Andreas SCHÖPF (AUT) 96 8. Hannes CLARA/Stefan GRUBER (ITA) 92 9. Stanislav KOVSHIK/Ivan RODIN (RUS) 73 10. Aleksandr EGOROV/Petr POPOV (RUS) 72