From Beijing, CHN
(February 8, 2022) – Less than a month ago Natalie Geisenberger was not sure if she’d travel to Beijing for the Winter Olympic Games, citing her experience traveling there for the test event earlier in the season.
She decided to show up for the Olympics despite that, and on Tuesday she won an unprecedented third Olympic gold medal in women’s luge.
Geisenberger held a .208 second advantage over teammate Anna Berreiter going into the third run. On that third trip down the Chinese track Geisenberger broke the track record set a day prior to open up her lead by another tenth of a second. Her fourth run just had to be relatively clean to win gold, but the German champion still threw down the second quickest run of the final heat to clinch the seventh straight gold medal for Germany in women’s luge.
The gold was Geisenberger’s third straight as she became the first woman in the sport of luge to ever win three Olympic golds in once discipline. She joins Georg Hackl as a three-time singles gold medalist and Armin Zöggeler as a six-time Olympic medalist (three golds and a bronze in singles plus two team gold medals).
As expected, Geisenberger was thrilled with another gold medal. This time though, it may have been just a little more special.
“I’m just happy that I got another Olympic gold medal, it was a pretty tough way to do it,” Geisenberger said. “Almost two years ago I had a baby, and then my family and I decided I would try to make a comeback. It was tough, my son is absolutely number one in my life so training was around my son. For me it’s a very special moment. ”
Berreiter put down the best four runs of her life over two days to win an emotional silver medal. The youngest of the German luge delegation was in tears as she came up the out run after securing silver in her first Olympic games.
“Getting over the finish line…I knew I had the medal, and it would be silver,” Berreiter explained. “Then all of the pressure came down off of my shoulders knowing that I’m a silver medalist at my very first Olympics. Then seeing my teammates waiting of me at the finish area was just amazing!”
Tatyana Ivanova finished in third for her first Olympic bronze medal after sitting out the 2018 Games.
Austria held down the next three spots in the finishing order. Madeleine Egle, a medal favorite coming into the Olympics, crashed in her first heat to finish the run in 17th place. Over the next three heats she rallied to move up from 17th to seventh, then sixth, before eventually finishing fourth. All three of her final runs were top-five efforts. Teammates Hannah Prock and Lisa Schulte finished just behind Egle in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Germany’s Julia Taubitz, the current World Cup champion, broke the track record in the first heat but crashed in the second to fall to 14th. She rallied over her final two runs to finish seventh.
The United States had a tough women’s luge event in these Olympic Games, with Ashley Farquharson was the only American slider to get a fourth run. Farquarson had crashed in her first heat but put together two eighth-quickest runs to move up to 17th going into the final run. on that final run she once again put down a top time, this time seventh quickest, to eventually move up to 12th.
After the race Farquharson said that pressure may have gotten to her a bit in the first run.
“I was putting a lot of pressure on myself,” she said. “For the first time I found myself worried about what other people were thinking of my results, and that’s never happened before. But all of a sudden I was like what if my mom cares that I get 20th? And course she doesn’t care!”
Summer Britcher and Emily Sweeney both had crashes on the first day of competition for the women that left them well out of the top 20 and without a realistic shot of making a fourth run. Both women rallied though to set their fastest runs of the race to move up to 23rd and 26th, respectively.
The Canadian women had an outstanding Olympics. All three of their athletes are first-time Olympians and all three made the final heat. Trinity Ellis, as she had been all season, was the leader of the women’s squad with a 14th place finish. Teammates Natalie Corless and Makena Hodgson finished 16th and 17th, respectively.
Results:
| Pos | Name | Nation | Bib | FIL Rank | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
| 1 | Natalie Geisenberger | GER | 1 | 3 | 58.402 | 58.423 | 58.226 | 58.403 | 3:53.454 |
| 2 | Anna Berreiter | GER | 3 | 4 | 58.525 | 58.508 | 58.348 | 58.566 | 3:53.947 |
| 3 | Tatyana Ivanova | ROC | 6 | 17 | 58.733 | 58.683 | 58.461 | 58.630 | 3:54.507 |
| 4 | Madeleine Egle | AUT | 2 | 1 | 59.342 | 58.493 | 58.542 | 58.432 | 3:54.809 |
| 5 | Hannah Prock | AUT | 12 | 9 | 58.762 | 58.732 | 58.532 | 58.798 | 3:54.824 |
| 6 | Lisa Schulte | AUT | 10 | 8 | 58.523 | 59.074 | 58.646 | 58.642 | 3:54.885 |
| 7 | Julia Taubitz | GER | 5 | 2 | 58.345 | 60.075 | 58.655 | 58.358 | 3:55.433 |
| 8 | Eliza Tiruma | LAT | 9 | 5 | 58.956 | 58.849 | 58.865 | 58.771 | 3:55.441 |
| 9 | Natalie Maag | SUI | 18 | 18 | 59.018 | 59.117 | 58.913 | 58.892 | 3:55.940 |
| 10 | Andrea Vötter | ITA | 8 | 7 | 59.145 | 59.045 | 58.852 | 58.935 | 3:55.977 |
| 11 | Kendija Aparjode | LAT | 28 | 11 | 59.107 | 59.020 | 58.928 | 59.084 | 3:56.139 |
| 12 | Ashley Farquharson | USA | 24 | 16 | 59.972 | 59.024 | 58.768 | 58.643 | 3:56.407 |
| 13 | Verna Hofer | ITA | 19 | 14 | 58.960 | 59.037 | 58.961 | 59.584 | 3:56.542 |
| 14 | Trinity Ellis | CAN | 15 | 22 | 59.219 | 59.053 | 58.888 | 59.704 | 3:56.864 |
| 15 | Nina Zöggeler | ITA | 13 | 15 | 59.464 | 59.160 | 59.085 | 59.275 | 3:56.984 |
| 16 | Natalie Corless | CAN | 29 | 36 | 59.193 | 59.316 | 59.176 | 59.570 | 3:57.255 |
| 17 | Makena Hodgson | CAN | 17 | 28 | 59.505 | 59.477 | 59.286 | 59.268 | 3:57.536 |
| 18 | Elina Vitola | LAT | 4 | 12 | 59.025 | 59.140 | 59.029 | 60.957 | 3:58.151 |
| 19 | Aileen Frisch | KOR | 26 | 33 | 59.776 | 59.642 | 59.055 | 61.811 | 4:00.284 |
| 20 | Tove Kohala | SWE | 30 | 37 | 59.533 | 59.776 | 59.333 | 62.431 | 4:01.073 |
| 21 | Yuliana Tunytska | UKR | 25 | 31 | 59.690 | 59.844 | 59.571 | 2:59.105 | |
| 22 | Olena Stetskiv | UKR | 20 | 26 | 59.663 | 59.586 | 59.963 | 2:59.212 | |
| 23 | Summer Britcher | USA | 23 | 13 | 60.986 | 59.156 | 59.152 | 2:59.294 | |
| 24 | Veronica Ravenna | ARG | 34 | 45 | 59.811 | 59.780 | 59.719 | 2:59.310 | |
| 25 | Katarina Simonakova | SVK | 21 | 30 | 60.124 | 59.851 | 59.761 | 2:59.736 | |
| 26 | Emily Sweeney | USA | 14 | 19 | 58.971 | 62.439 | 58.882 | 3:00.292 | |
| 27 | Klaudia Domaradzka | POL | 22 | 34 | 59.871 | 59.892 | 61.313 | 3:01.076 | |
| 28 | Viktoriia Demchenko | ROC | 11 | 6 | 58.869 | 63.466 | 58.838 | 3:01.173 | |
| 29 | Peixuan Wang | CHN | 32 | 41 | 60.986 | 60.391 | 60.025 | 3:01.402 | |
| 30 | Anna Cezikova | CZE | 31 | 40 | 60.392 | 61.169 | 60.101 | 3:01.662 | |
| 31 | Sin-Rong Lin | TPE | 33 | 46 | 61.550 | 61.057 | 61.004 | 3:03.611 | |
| 32 | Doina Descalui | MDA | 35 | 50 | 61.928 | 62.192 | 62.174 | 3:06.294 | |
| 33 | Elsa Desmond | IRL | 27 | 54 | 61.608 | 63.857 | 62.254 | 3:07.719 | |
| DNF | Raluca Stramaturaru | ROU | 16 | 25 | 61.357 | 60.305 | DNF | DNF | |
| DNF | Ekaterina Katnikova | ROC | 7 | 10 | DNF | DNF |