Germany wins Olympic relay to complete sweep of luge gold medals

Germany 4, Rest of World 0.

Beijing 2022 was a luge runaway for the world's sliding superpower, which won gold in men's, women's and doubles events — then put those champions in Thursday's team relay and watched them end the season with one more victory.

Natalie Geisenberger, Johannes Ludwig and the doubles team of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt finished in 3 minutes, 3.406 seconds at the Yanqing Sliding Centre, 0.080 seconds ahead of silver-medallist Austria and 0.948 seconds ahead of bronze-medallist Latvia.

The medal standings were a runaway. The relay was not. Wendl and Arlt had to make up a one-tenth of a second deficit in the final heat of the competition, then skidded a bit just before the finish line — but had just enough speed to prevail.

"That's a great performance," German coach Norbert Loch said. "And now, beer. We earned it."

'We can be very proud of ourselves'

Geisenberger is now a six-time gold medallist — three in a row in the women's race, three in a row in relays.

"I think we can be very proud of ourselves, to have together eight gold medals and to go home [with that]," said Geisenberger. "It was very close, it was just eight hundredths [of a second]. The Austrians did a very great job the whole season long. We are more than happy to stand on the top of the podium right now."

Wendl and Arlt, who have pulled off the doubles-then-relay sweep in each of the last three Olympics, are also six-time gold medallists.

Ludwig is merely a three-time gold medallist, after being part of the relay triumph in 2018 and then climbing atop the podium twice this week.

"I'm very excited for this race, maybe a little bit more excited than my singles race and it makes it very, very special," said Ludwig.

Those four sliders, combined: 15 Olympic gold medals.

Every non-German luge nation, combined: 14 Olympic gold medals.