Intro:

Steven Holcomb and Steve Langton won the first two-man bobsled race of the World Cup season in Calgary, Canada.

There was despair for fellow American Noelle Pikus-Pace who was disqualified after finishing first in the women's skeleton.

Script:

Noelle Pikus-Pace was disqualified from the season-opening women's World Cup skeleton event, after her sled failed a post-race inspection.

The American had finished in first place in Calgary and was announced as the winner.

A protest was filed by the British over a piece of tape wrapped around her handle, which had been cleared by international sliding officials.

After the protest was upheld, Britain's Elizabeth Yarnold was given first, Russian Elena Nikitina moved up to second, and Australia's Michelle Steele went into third.

No such controversy though in the men's event.

Gold went to Martins Dukurs.

The Latvian eclipsed Russia's Alexander Tretiakov by over seven-tenths of a second after two runs.

Just below Tretiakov on the podium was Dominic Parsons of Great Britain.

His previous best was seventh but a near flawless second run saw him just hold off Tomass Dukurs.

The first World Cup two-man bobsled race of the Olympic season then saw Steven Holcomb and Steve Langton set a Calgary track record.

The US pair's time of 1 minute, 49.22 seconds was 0.16 seconds ahead of Switzerland's Beat Hefti and Alex Baumann, and 0.20 seconds better than Canada's Chris Spring and Jesse Lumsden.

A track record of 54.51 seconds in the opening run was only good enough to have Holcomb and Langton 0.02 seconds ahead of Spring and Lumsden.

But the Canadians faltered on home ice in their second run, and the American duo made it down without any major mistakes to wrap up the win.