Skeleton Olympic champion Hannah Neise started the World Cup season with a win.
The woman from Winterberg was successful on Friday (local time) in Whistler, Canada, after two runs in 1:47.40 minutes.
In the second round, she edged out Hallie Clarke, the American who was leading at half-time, by 0.18 seconds to second place.
Third place went to Briton Brogan Crowley.
"It was definitely better than expected, it was my first time here at the start," said Neise, amazed: "I can build on that, the win strengthens my back."
In her previous career, the native of Arnsberg had never stood on a World Cup podium.
“All in all, a somewhat surprising result, because Hannah didn't necessarily indicate that in training.
But just like at the Olympics, she was there on the day of the race and pulled off two strong runs,” praised national coach Christian Baude.
Tina Hermann from Koenigssee came sixth after a botched first run and best time in the second run, Junior World Champion and World Cup debutant Susanne Kreher from Oberbärenburg finished tenth among 16 participating women.
Previously, the German men had missed a podium.
Olympic silver medalist Axel Jungk Oberbärenburg) was fourth and three hundredths of a second behind in third place, while Olympic champion Christopher Grotheer from BRC Thuringia was fifth.
Felix Keisinger (Königssee) was seventh.
National coach Baude said: "I'm more satisfied with the result today than with the performance that we showed.
In terms of driving, none of the three guys were really good today.
After practice, I had hoped that we would be able to get on the podium and fight for victory.”
Victory went to Brit Marcus Wyatt, who beat South Korea's Seunggi Jung to second by just a hundredth of a second.
The Ukrainian Wladyslaw Heraskevych, who thanks to the support of the German association "Athletes for Ukraine" can pursue his sport in his home country despite the war, finished tenth, 2.07 seconds behind.