OLYMPICS: Luge-Germans win team relay for fourth Games in a row

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy – Germany maintained their dominance in the Olympic luge team relay on Thursday, bouncing back from Wednesday’s doubles disappointment to claim gold for the fourth consecutive Games since the event debuted in 2014.

The high-speed relay, featuring men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, and women’s doubles racing back-to-back, saw top-seeded Germany finish comfortably ahead of Austria and Italy, despite their earlier doubles setback.

Germany’s squad included both Cortina singles champions – Julia Taubitz and Max Langenhan, who set a track record in all four of his runs earlier this week. Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, six-time Olympic gold medallists in doubles and team events, recovered from Wednesday’s bronze to secure gold, while Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina, Wednesday’s doubles silver medallists, completed the strong lineup. Germany finished half a second clear of the competition.

With this win, Germany has now captured 41 of the 56 Olympic luge golds ever contested, including three of the five awarded this week.

Austria, led by Lisa Schulte, Thomas Steu, Wolfgang Kindl, Jonas Mueller, Selina Egle, and Lara Kipp, earned silver for the second straight Games, narrowly outpacing host nation Italy. Italy’s team, featuring singles racers Verena Hofer and double Olympic bronze medallist Dominik Fischnaller along with Wednesday’s double gold-winning duos Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner, and Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer, could not hold off Austria.

Latvia placed fourth, followed by the United States, Ukraine, and China.

-Reporting by Mitch Phillips; Editing by Alison Williams and Christian Radnedge/Reuters