Natalie Geisenberger and Felix Loch, Bavarian lugers who have known each other for 22 years, spent nearly half of that span excelling at the highest level of the sport. But last season, the Germans vanished altogether from the top of podiums.
Geisenberger, the 2014 and 2018 Olympic champion, announced one month before the 2019-20 campaign that she was pregnant with her first child and missed the entire season.
Loch, the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion, did compete. But he struggled, failing to win a single World Cup or world championships race for the first time since 2007.