Italians Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner caused a surprise when they seized Olympic gold in the men's luge doubles on Wednesday, ending Germany's three Games-long hold on glory.

Italy also won the inaugural women's doubles earlier, bringing the host nation's tally to four golds across all sports so far in Milan/Cortina.

Six-times Olympic champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt could only finish with bronze in a tightly packed men's field. The German pair boasted three straight doubles golds and three successive team relay golds at Winter Games.

Austrian duo Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl secured silver, 0.068 seconds adrift of the Italians. Steu had scooped bronze four years' ago in Beijing.

US duo Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa took a shock lead after a track record in the first run but errors second time around left them sixth.

Italian duo Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer earlier zoomed to victory in the inaugural Olympic luge women's doubles.

While women could theoretically have competed in doubles at previous Winter Games given it was an open category, no female luger did.

A women's doubles was introduced to this year's Olympics to achieve equality, having already existed in world championships and World Cups. Eleven sleds all from different nations took part, with none of the women from Tuesday's individual final won by Germany's Julia Taubitz competing.

The Italians led after the first run thanks to a start record and ended up with a combined 1 minute 46.284 seconds after the second and final run.

German pair Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina took silver, 0.120 back, and Austrian world champions Selina Egle and Lara Michaela Kipp placed third.

The sliding centre in Cortina was built quickly by Italian organizers after the International Olympic Committee had wanted to hold sliding events at these Games abroad for cost reasons.

Given the controversy, the track is holding up well and producing fast but so far safe races.