Germany are on course towards an eighth straight Olympic women’s luge gold medal when Julia Taubitz claimed the overnight lead ahead of team-mate Merle Fräbel on Monday.
Fräbel, a Youth Olympics champion from 2020, topped the first round in track record time but world champion Taubitz lowered that mark in the second run to take a slender lead of .061 of a second into Tuesday’s final two heats.
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Latvia’s Elina Bota is a distant third, almost half a second behind Taubitz which is a huge margin in the sport where every one-thousandths of a second is crucial.
“I was a bit nervous in the first run and there were a few mistakes. But the second one was great. I was really in a flow and could enjoy it,” Taubitz said.
Taubitz aims for redemption after having to settle for seventh in 2022 as top favourite following a crash.
Other contenders struggled on Monday, with Austrian World Cup leader Lisa Schulte seventh with a deficit of .678 and American Summer Britcher 12th and trailing by 1.426 seconds after a terrible start.
Germany have won every women’s luge gold since 1998, and already have a gold on the Cortina track from Max Langenhan in the men’s event on Sunday.
