By Mitch Phillips
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 13 (Reuters) - After sweeping the luge gold medals in Beijing, another German full house was expected in Cortina, but though the sport’s most dominant nation won three of the five events, it was the two the hosts took that will be the abiding memory of the Cortina Games.
Germany arrived having won an astonishing 38 of the 52 golds up for grabs since the sport joined in 1964 and their 39th came courtesy of one of the most dominant performances of that
62 years.
Double world champion Max Langenhan set the track record with the first run of the first round of the men's singles, then proceeded to break it three more times for a crushing victory – Germany’s fourth in the last five Games.
Austria's Jonas Mueller was over half a second adrift for silver, with Italian Dominik Fischnaller repeating his third place from four years ago.
There was more German joy – and heartbreak – in the women’s singles as Julia Taubitz won an emphatic gold after compatriot Merle Fraebel, breathing down her neck, had a terrible third run to drop out of contention.
Four years ago it was Taubitz, a five-times overall World Cup winner, who had a spectacular crash on her second run to miss out on a medal, but she made no mistake in Cortina as Germany won the event for the eighth Games in a row.
Elina Bota finished second to become the first Latvian woman to claim an individual medal in any Winter Olympic sport, with Ashley Farquharson getting the bronze for the United States.
The German gold rush was expected to continue in the doubles but Italy, thanks in part to the long hours the home athletes had put in to master the technical challenge of their new home track, upset the status quo not once, but twice, within an hour.
Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer delivered two silky runs to become the first Italian women to medal in the sport since Gerda Weissensteiner won the singles in 1994 – the last time any non-German woman took an Olympic luge gold.
German pair Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina had to settle for silver, with Austria’s World Cup leaders Selina Egle and Lara Kipp taking bronze.
The victory produced a fabulous atmosphere around the track, which only intensified during a thrilling men’s competition.
American pair Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa, setting off 10th, posted a track record in their first run and looked on course for a surprise gold in their second, before a late skid dropped them back to sixth.
That left Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner, not even the country's top team, as the shock champions and the first Italian luge gold medallists since current head coach Armin Zoeggeler won his second singles title in 2006 – also on home ice in Turin.
Austria took silver while Germany's Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, who had won the event in the previous three Games, celebrated their bronze like teenage debutants having seemed out of the running.
The pair were back on their usual position on the podium in the final event of the programme as Germany’s power-packed lineup won the relay for the fourth time since it was introduced to the Games, with Wendl and Arlt in the team every year.
Austria were second with Italy rounding off a fabulous week by taking bronze.
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Toby Davis)
