The 28-year-old German and her brakewoman Annika Drazek dominated the women’s bobsleigh race on a track in the Latvian capital that had not hosted a World Cup event for more than a decade and which had been the subject of some early safety concerns.

Darrin Steele, chief executive officer of USA Bobsled and Skeleton Federation (USABS), confirmed yesterday’s insidethegames report that his team members had decided not to train until damage to the track high up on bend 15 – caused by what was believed to be a South Korean mono-bob the previous week – had been mended.

“Yes, we are racing,” he told insidethegames.

“We just wanted to wait for them to fix the curve to play it safe.”

A spokesperson for USABS added: “There was an accident with the Korean sled.

“No one was injured.

“We took a few days off to allow repairs to be made to the track.

“The IBSF track commission certified the repairs and we began training again.”

Jamanka finished 0.61 seconds ahead of the Russian pairing of Nadezhda Sergeeva and Yulia Belomestnykh, with a second German pairing of Anna Köhler and Lisa Sophie Gericke finishing third, 0.82 back.

The German winning pair set a track record after undercutting the previous benchmark by almost two seconds with a time of 51.28sec on their first run.

Overall, nearly all of the athletes managed to break the old track record.

The United States duo of Elana Meyers Taylor – the Olympic silver medallist from Pyeongchang 2018 – and her brakewoman Sylvia Hoffmann was disqualified after the first heat for failing to meet the lower weight limit.

Following the first of eight races on the 2018 to 2019 BMW IBSF World Cup circuit, the overall standings are led by Jamanka on 225 points, ahead of Sergeeva, who has 210,  and Köhler, who has 200.