Friends since the age of six, Stefan Krausse and Jan Behrendt grew up in Ilmenau, the hometown of both 1988 luge individual gold medalist Jens Mueller. Krausse and Behrendt themselves took home silver medals in the double-seater event in 1988, trailing East German teammates Jörg Hoffmann and Jochen Pietzsch by a tenth of a second. At the 1992 Albertville Olympics, Krausse and Behrendt moved up the platform to the gold medal stand. Two years later in the Lillehammer Games, they completed their set of medals by placing third. By the time of the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Krausse and Behrendt were 31 years old. This time they took a lead of 42 one-thousandths of a second on the first run and withstood the challenge of Americans Chris Thorpe and Gordon Sheer to hold on for the victory. They are the only double-seater sliders to earn medals in four Olympics.
