Germany Sweeps Luge Golds with Relay Win

From Beijing, CHN

(February 10, 2022) – Germany continued its domination of Olympic luge, completing a sweep of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games program with a win in the Team Relay. But it wasn’t easy.

Like it had been for most of the Olympics, the luge race came down to Austria and Germany. Austria, ranked just below Germany in the World Cup, was the first of the two teams off the top. The team of Madeleine Egle (fourth in women’s luge), Wolfgang Kindl (silver in men’s luge) and Thomas Steu & Lorenz Koller (bronze in doubles luge) put down a huge run, over .8 ahead of Latvia.

That left just the Germans, whose team comprised of nothing but Olympic gold medalists. Natalie Geisenberger was the first off, and while she had a clean and quick slide she hit the paddle .036 behind Egle and Austria. Next was Johannes Ludwig, who like Geisenberger was nearly flawless but again was behind Kindl. The three-time Olympic gold medalist team of Tobias Wendl & Tobias Arlt rallied, and while both they and their Austrian counterparts had small issues on their runs, the German duo kept their run together enough to pull ahead and edge the Austrians by .080 to win Germany’s third straight Team Relay gold medal.

For Wendl and Arlt, the victory isn’t the final thing they’ll end their storied careers on.

“We will certainly continue for another season,” Wendl said. “World Championships in Oberhof are on our docket, and we would very much like to end our careers in Königssee.”

Austria won their second straight medal, upgrading from a bronze in Pyeongchang to win silver. Latvia, made up of Eliza Tiruma, Kristers Aparjods, and the team of Martins Bots & Roberts Plume, won their second bronze medal in Olympic Team Relay.

For Austria’s Egle, the silver medal made up for a disappointing women’s race.

“Yes, it gave me some more motivation to win a medal in the team relay,” Egle said after the race. “I knew that I could do it, and it showed me that we as a team could have great runs and win this medal.”

Canada’s young singles sliders of Trinity Ellis and Reid Watts were anchored by 2018 Olympic relay silver medalists Tristan Walker & Justin Snith. The team finished their Olympics with three strong slides to finish sixth.

Behind the Canadians were the Americans, with 2018 Olympic silver medalist Chris Mazdzer sandwiched between Olympic rookies Ashley Farquharson and the team of Zach Di Gregorio and Sean Hollander. The Americans appeared to have a shot for at least a top six finish, but a big hit late for their doubles team dropped them behind the Canadians.

Results: