02/08/26 12:27:00
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02/08 12:25 CST Germany's Max Langenhan wins Olympic men's singles luge gold,
with dominating performance
Germany's Max Langenhan wins Olympic men's singles luge gold, with dominating
performance
By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Sports Writer
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) --- A gold medal at the Milan Cortina Olympics
weighs 506 grams, or just over 1.1 pounds. It's a fairly heavy necklace.
It's now a great problem for Germany's Max Langenhan to deal with.
Langenhan --- a two-time defending World Cup overall champion who feared that
he would have to withdraw from the men's singles competition in Cortina because
of serious neck pain --- became his country's latest Olympic luge champion on
Sunday night by holding off Austria's Jonas Mueller and Italy's Dominik
Fischnaller for the first of the 12 sliding gold medals to be awarded in these
games.
He finished four runs over two days in 3 minutes, 31.191 seconds. Mueller was
second in 3:31.787 and Fischnaller got his second consecutive Olympic men's
singles bronze medal by finishing in 3:32:125.
Langenhan posted the fourth-biggest winning margin in Olympic men's singles
luge history.
USA Luge was paced by Jonny Gustafson, who finished 11th, while Olympic rookie
Matthew Greiner was 20th for the Americans.
Among other notables: two-time Olympic gold medalist and current World Cup
leader Felix Loch of Germany was sixth and Austria's Wolfgang Kindl --- the
only luge athlete in these Olympics competing in both singles and doubles ---
was eighth.
There's something fitting about Germany, Austria and Italy ending up on the
medal stand. They're the only nations to ever win gold in men's singles at the
Olympics --- with Germany far, far, far ahead of the rest of that pack.
Germany --- by various names --- now has 12 of the 17 Olympic men's singles
all-time luge gold medals. Italy has three, Austria the other two. That's it,
even with all other nations spending more than a half-century chasing those
three European sliding juggernauts.
Langenhan is the ninth German man to win the singles Olympic gold, and he beat
serious contenders for this title. Mueller won the test event at Cortina's
rebuilt Eugenio Monti track in November, while Fischnaller --- the husband of
longtime USA Luge women's star Emily Fischnaller, formerly Emily Sweeney ---
had the edge of being at home and was trying to match Armin Zoeggeler's feat
from Turin 2006 and claim gold on Italian ice.
Fischnaller was mobbed by Italian sliders, all in white puffy coats, as he
crossed the finish line. There was one blue coat jumping around in that mass
hug as well; that would be his wife, who was wearing her U.S. colors for the
occasion.
The women's singles event starts Monday and finishes Tuesday. The men's doubles
event is Wednesday, as is the women's doubles race --- which is making its
Olympic debut. And on Thursday, the team relay concludes the luge slate at
these Olympics.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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