By David Kirton
YANQING, China (Reuters) -The “Bayern Express” of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt thundered to their third successive luge men’s doubles gold in Beijing on Wednesday, making it three luge golds out of three for their country this Olympics.
Their closest competition came from home with Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken, who took the silver.
Eggert and Benecken had dominated the last World Cup season, just as they had four years ago before Pyeongchang.
But just as in South Korea, they couldn’t catch the two Tobiases on the Olympic stage, finishing 0.099 seconds behind the winning time of 1:56.554.
They improved on their bronze from four years ago, however, taking silver at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre.
Their Austrian neighbours Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller made a valiant effort to spoil the German parade, but they had to settle for bronze after coming in a more sizeable 0.511 seconds slower than the winning mark.
It’s now out of three out of three for Germany in the luge events, after Natalie Geisenberger claimed her own third gold in the women’s singles on Tuesday and Johannes Ludwig took his first on Saturday.
There’s a chance for an upset in the team relay on Thursday, but don’t count on it – Germany are the favourites there as well.
(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
