Anna Berreiter earned her third World Cup win of the season ©Getty Images

Germany’s Anna Berreiter celebrated the third International Luge Federation (FIL) World Cup win of her career after topping the standings in the first of back-to-back events in Sochi.

Berreiter enjoyed a breakthrough in the 2019-2020 season, where she claimed two victories in a debut campaign.

Her first triumph saw her become the youngest woman to win a FIL World Cup, aged 20.

Having achieved one podium in four races last season, the new campaign began promisingly with a fourth-place result at the Beijing 2022 test event earlier this month.

Berreiter was in contention for victory at the halfway stage in Sochi, after placing second on the opening run with a time of 50.172sec.

Russia’s Ekaterina Katnikova led the standings on 50.110, but could only manage the 20th-quickest time on the second run.

Berreiter proved the beneficiary by clocking 50.476, giving her an overall winning time of 1min 40.649sec.

The result marked Berreiter’s second major triumph at the Sliding Center Sanki, having won the first of two under-23 world titles at the venue in 2020.

Latvia’s Kendija Aparjode finished as the runner-up in a time of 1:40.756.

Russia’s Viktoriia Demchenko achieved a time of 1:40.917 to complete the podium on the home track, which was constructed for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Victory saw Berreiter move to the top of the women’s World Cup standings after two races, with the German scoring 160 points thus far.

Austria’s Madeleine Egle, the winner at the Beijing 2022 test event, lies second on 146 points after a seventh-place finish today.

Latvian brothers Andris and Juris Sics topped the standings in the doubles World Cup competition.

The duo achieved a time of 1:39.783 over the two runs.

Russia’s Andrey Bogdanov and Yuri Prokhorov were runners-up in 1:39.903, with Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt third in 1:40.012.

Reigning world champions Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken missed out on a podium place, as the German team finished in 1:40.017.

The Sics brothers now lead the World Cup standings on 170 points, with a 10-point cushion to Eggert and Benecken.

Men’s competition will take place tomorrow, as well as the second team relay competition.

Sochi is then scheduled to host the third World Cup event on December 4 and 5, where the first sprint races of the season are set to be contested.