At the end of two runs, Lochner, a runner-up at the 2015 World Championships, and his brakeman Christian Rasp held an accumulative time of 2 mins 10.63sec.

Their team mates, Francesco Friedrich and Martin Grothkopp, took second place in 2:10.91.

Back in 2013, Friedrich won the first of his three World Championship titles in the two-man bobsleigh on the track in St Moritz. 

After securing the third best time of the competition in their second run, Steven Holcomb and Carlo Valdes of the United States slid their way from seventh place to take third with an overall time of 2:11.30.

Oskars Melbardis of Latvia, the overall winner of the 2015 World Cup, finished in sixth in St Moritz for his best result of the season.

After finishing ninth in St Moritz, last year’s overall winner Yunjong Won of South Korea only just held onto his lead in overall World Cup standings with 896 points.

Friedrich remains in second on 885 while American Holcomb is third overall on 865 after the fifth of eight races.

Bobsleigh pilot Elana Meyers Taylor of the USA won the fifth race of the women's bobsleigh season by the narrowest of margins.

After breaking the season track record with her time of 1:07.73 on her second run, the 2015 World Champion and her brakewoman Briauna Jones pushed the reigning Olympic Champion Kaillie Humphries and her brakewoman Melissa Lotholz of Canada into second place by just one hundredth of a second.

The Americans finished with a combined time of 2:16.14, while their Canadian opponents finished in 2:16.15.

The Olympic bronze medallist Jamie Greubel Poser and brakewoman Lauren Gibbs, also of the US took third place in 2:16.29.

With a total of 1044 points, defending World Cup winner Humphries has slightly extended her lead in the overall standings.

She now sits 35 ahead of second-place Greubel Poser who has 1,009.

Austria's Christina Hengster, who came fifth in St Moritz today, is third overall on 946.

The four-man event completes the schedule in St Moritz tomorrow.