Hermann and Grotheer defended their women’s and men’s titles yesterday, with the pair joining forces in the mixed team event today.

Hermann achieved a time of 58.40sec in her competition run, with Grotheer clocking 57.01 to preserve their advantage.

The German duo finished in a combined time of 1min 55.41sec to secure gold.

Jacqueline Lölling and Alexander Gassner finished as the silver medallists, completing a German one-two by finishing in 1:55.55.

Bronze was claimed by Elena Nikitina and Alexander Tretiakov, who finished a further 0.01 back.

Nikitina and Tretiakov were competing as the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia, under conditions imposed following the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling in December amid the Russian doping scandal.

The World Championship debut of women’s monobob also began today, with the first two runs of competition held.

Germany’s Stephanie Schneider leads at the halfway mark, after posting the second-fastest time in both runs today.

Schneider produced times of 1:00.07 and 1:00.45 to lead the competition.

Her combined time of 2:00.52 is 0.04sec faster than the United States’ Kaillie Humphries, who was quickest in the second run.

Humphries will hope to add to the two-woman bobsleigh title she claimed last week in Altenberg.

Germany’s Laura Nolte completes the top three at the halfway stage of competition on 2:00.70.

The final two runs will be held tomorrow.

Monobob will make its Olympic debut at Beijing 2022.

Defending four-man bobsleigh champion Francesco Friedrich leads after two runs of competition, with team-mates Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller.

The quartet top the standings on 1:48.04, after producing the fastest times in both heats today.

Austria's Benjamin Maier, Danut Moldovan, Markus Sammer and Kristian Huber are second at 0.38 down.

Johannes Lochner, Florian Bauer, Christopher Weber and Christian Rasp complete the top three, with the German crew 0.71 behind the leaders.

The World Championships will conclude tomorrow.