Luge-Langenhan takes crushing luge gold for Germany

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 8 : Max Langenhan delivered an astonishing performance to strike gold in the men's luge singles on Sunday, breaking the track record four times in a row to win by a mile and continue Germany's domination of the event they have taken in four of the last five Olympics.

In a sport where positions are often decided by thousandths of a second, Austria's Jonas Mueller was over half a second adrift for silver, with Italian Dominik Fischnaller, who won bronze four years ago, repeating his third place.

Double world champion Langenhan had laid down his challenge on Saturday when he twice set the track record, including with the first run of the competition, with Mueller the only other athlete to break 53 seconds.

Langenhan was first out of the gate again in the third run on Sunday and was even better with a massive third track record of 52.705.

Former world champion Mueller was also impressive with another sub-53 time and a start record in his third run but he still lost ground, leaving Langenhan with a relatively comfortable cushion of almost three tenths of a second going into the final run when he was the last man out.

He did not sit back though, instead roaring to an incredible fourth record in a row of 52.660 seconds for a huge victory.

Having won the World Championship title in the last two years, Langenhan has again timed his season brilliantly to peak when it matters most. He is currently third in the World Cup rankings, without winning any of the seven races but consistently on the podium.

Germany’s current World Cup leader 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion Felix Loch had been a surprise eighth overnight. He climbed to sixth on Sunday but, despite his disappointment, was among the first to hug