From Oberhof, GER
(January 18, 2026) – Germany scored their third win in the Team Relay on Sunday as they held off a quick Austrian team to take the top spot on the podium.
The race kicked off with Romania making it through clean for the second straight race. But they were quickly bumped from the lead by the United States.
The Americans held the lead as neither Ukraine or Poland could get within a full second of their time.
Germany’s team was made up of podium finishers. Merle Fräbel was fist off and opened up a .28 second advantage over the Americans. Fromt here, Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt pulled ahead by another tenth, with Felix Loch and the team of Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina opening up the lead to over a full second over the Americans.
Latvia was next, and couldn’t quite match the Germans’ pace, falling back by .910 behind the Germans.
The final team off was Austria, winner of one gold and a handful of silvers on the season. After Lisa Schulte kept things close with her run, Juri Gatt and Riccardo Schöpf got the team within shouting distance of gold. But neither men’s luge gold medalist Jonas Müller or women’s doubles silver medalists Selina Egle and Lara Kipp could quite close the gap to their rivals and Egle and Kipp hit the paddle .147 behind the Germans for their fourth silver in five races.
Germany’s win was their third on the season in the discipline and 53rd all time out of 92 events. Latvia’s bronze was their third medal.
USA was fourth, Poland fifth, Ukraine sixth and Romania seventh.
Italy pulled their entire team to begin training for the Olympics in Cortina.
With one relay to go to end the season in Altenberg, Austria has a commanding lead over Germany. Latvia is third, 15 points behind the Germans, with Poland fourth and the United States fifth.
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Women | M-Doubles | Men | W-Doubles |
| 1 | Merle Fräbel / Wendl & Arlt / Felix Loch / Eitberger & Matschina | GER | 5 | 47.730 | 1:35.092 | 2:21.817 | 3:10.452 |
| 2 | Lisa Schulte / Gatt & Schöpf / Jonas Müller / Egle & Kipp | AUT | 7 | 47.840 | 1:35.452 | 2:22.338 | 3:10.599 |
| 3 | Elina Bota / Bots & Plume / Kristers Aparjods / Upite & Pavlova | LAT | 6 | 47.796 | 1:35.467 | 2:22.304 | 3:11.362 |
| 4 | Ashley Farquharson / DiGregorio & Hollander / Jonathan Gustafson / Forgan & Kirkby | USA | 2 | 48.066 | 1:35.560 | 2:23.099 | 3:11.885 |
| 5 | Klaudia Domaradzka / Chmielewski & Gancarczyk / Mateusz Sochowicz / Domowicz & Piwkowska | POL | 4 | 48.855 | 1:36.756 | 2:24.162 | 3:13.526 |
| 6 | Yulianna Tunytska / Hoi & Kachmar / Andriy Mandziy / Stetskiv & Mokh | UKR | 3 | 48.654 | 1:37.190 | 2:24.901 | 3:14.801 |
| 7 | Ioana Buzatoiu / Gitlan & Serban / Valentin Cretu / Stramaturaru & Manolescu | ROU | 1 | 48.922 | 1:37.381 | 2:25.033 | 3:14.905 |