Historic end of the German gold rush at the Beijing Winter Games: In a toboggan thriller, the doubles Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt secured the Olympic victory in the team competition, Natalie Geisenberger is now the German record Olympian with a total of six triumphs. With a razor-thin lead of 0.080 seconds, Germany won ahead of Austria on Thursday and thus secured their fourth success in the fourth competition on the Yanqing ice track. Bronze went to Latvia.
“Yesterday was incredible. But that’s the icing on the cake of a great performance by my team. The whole team did an excellent job,” said head coach Norbert Loch on ZDF. “In the end, the Tobis showed that they were entitled to become Olympic champions and that they rocked the team relay. We’ll have a few beers. We deserve it.”
Geisenberger, who won bronze in Vancouver in 2010 and thus has one more Olympic medal in her possession than Wendl/Arlt, finally left Claudia Pechstein behind as the most successful winter athlete with the team gold. The five-time speed skating Olympic champion was also overtaken by Wendl/Arlt in the all-time record. The doubles from Berchtesgaden and Königssee started the race about a tenth of a second behind Geisenberger and Ludwig and turned the result over the last few meters in favor of the Germans.
Since the introduction of the team competition in 2014, only the German relay has won – always with the toboggan queen Geisenberger and Wendl/Arlt. Felix Loch, who was only a spectator this time, cheered at the premiere in Sochi. In Pyeongchang and now in China, the Thuringian Johannes Ludwig was the better single-seater. With four gold and two silver medals, the German team even surpassed the previous best Olympic record of Sochi 2014.
The next German toboggan talents are ready
Head coach Loch was less impressed by the precious metal than by the performance of his protégés. “I’m not a medal counter, I’m focused on the climax, we did an excellent job. That counts for me. I’m incredibly proud of the squad that everyone has performed completely,” said Loch, who also completed the last run of the previously fallen Julia Taubitz praised. A perfect gold record with all victories in all competitions was last seen in Sochi 2014. “Of course, with a total of eight sleds, driving errors sometimes happen,” but if you add up the percentages, the competition made a lot more mistakes.
Although many oldies like Geisenberger, Ludwig and both doubles still leave their future open, Loch knows that the next generation is ready with the silver winner Anna Berreiter, Max Langenhan (sixth) and many talents. They should deliver success at the home World Cup in 2023 in Oberhof.
He is more concerned about the future of the Königssee railway, which was partially destroyed in a storm in July 2021 in the upper part. “I hope that many have seen what it means to get young people and children to do sports. For this we need sports facilities, trainers and coaches, they are the ones who do the dirty work at the beginning. If we then have a track like that, like that If the sports facility were to collapse, we would lose a lot.”
According to Loch, not only Olympic champions are formed on the oldest artificial ice rink in the world, “we have to give our children and young people a future, which for me is a very crucial point. You should look at it from this point of view. And traditionally, the oldest artificial ice rink in the be put back into operation in the world,” Loch demanded.