Luge-Langenhan breaks track record twice for halfway lead

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 7 : Germany's Max Langenhan got the Olympic luge competition off to a flying start on Saturday, scorching to a track record with the first run of the men's singles then breaking it with his second to place one hand on the gold medal at the halfway point.

Langenhan, the double world champion, was the only man to break 53 seconds in the week's practice runs and took that form into the first of four competition runs with a time of 52.924 seconds.

He then sat back and watched his 24 rivals try and fail to match him, as Austria's former world champion Jonas Mueller was the only other man to break the 53-second mark.

Setting off as the 12th man in the second run Langenhan was even smoother, and faster, to clock 52.902 for an aggregate of one minute, 45.826 seconds.

Mueller clocked a second run of 53.029 for 1:45.988 to sit in second place having lost the track record he set in November to his team mate.

"So far, so good. I'm pretty happy with my two runs today," Mueller said. "I usually have one good run and one really bad, so I'm happy I had two solid runs today.

"I lost some time in (curve) nine both of the runs, then in 11 and 14, so there's still room for improvement, but overall I'm pretty happy."

Home hope Dominik Fischnaller, the bronze medallist four years ago who has been racking up as many practice runs on the new track as he can, delivered two smooth runs to end the day third on 1:46.124.

It is a position he is probably heartily sick of having also won bronze three times at the World Championships.

"The Germans will be hard to beat but we have some advantage with way more runs on this track so far, so we are giving it all we have," Fischnaller said after his final practice run.

Kristers Aparjods,