From Cortina d’Ampezzo, ITA
(February 12, 2026) – Germany put down four quick and clean runs to close out the Olympic luge program with another gold medal in the Team Relay.
The race kicked off with Romania and Poland being out-slid by the Chinese team before Ukraine took over as leaders with the contenders still to go.
The United States, led by bronze medalist Ashley Farquharson were next and put down four clean runs that at the moment looked like it could be enough to score a medal. And it felt that way for well over 75% of Latvia’s effort. But Marta Robezniece and Kitija Bogdanova threw down a bit final run and edged out the Americans to take the lead with three to go.
Austria was next. Lisa Schulte, Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl, Jonas Müller, and Selina Egle and Lara Kipp all put down smooth runs to take the lead from the Latvians by a half of a second, and then held off Italy’s Verena Hofer, Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner, Dominik Fischnaller, and Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer, who were clean but simply lacked some of the speed the later Austrians had.
The final team off the top was Germany. In 2014, 2018, and 2022 the Relay was contested and every time Germany had won. Julia Taubitz kicked things off and immediately took a lead over Lisa Schulte. Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt threw down another quick and clean run to open the lead. Max Langenhan and the doubles team of Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina closed out a half second victory over Austria for Germany’s fourth gold in four races, with Austria silver and Italy bronze.
The gold for Germany made Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt the most decorated lugers in Olympic history with seven each. It was Taubitz’s second medal (both gold), Langenhan’s second (also both gold), Eitberger’s third (silver in 2018 in singles, silver in 2026 in doubles) and Matschina’s second.
Despite the team’s domination in the discipline, Tobias Wendl was surprised by the team’s performance.
“A week ago, I wouldn’t have thought we’d be going home with two medals,” Wendl told FIL media after the race. “But now we know what the sled can do and we’re accelerating even on the downhill section of the track.”
Results:
| Pos | Names | Nation | Bib | Women | M-Doubles | Men | W-Doubles |
| 1 | Julia Taubitz / Wendl & Arlt / Max Langenhan / Eitberger & Matschina | GER | 9 | 55.663 | 1:50.852 | 2:45.543 | 3:41.672 |
| 2 | Lisa Schulte / Steu & Kindl / Jonas Müller / Egle & Kipp | AUT | 7 | 55.959 | 1:51.329 | 2:46.056 | 3:42.214 |
| 3 | Verena Hofer / Rieder & Kainzwaldner / Dominik Fischnaller / Vötter & Oberhofer | ITA | 8 | 55.830 | 1:51.162 | 2:46.250 | 3:42.521 |
| 4 | Elina Bota / Bots & Plume / Kristers Aparjods / Robezniece & Bogdanova | LAT | 6 | 55.684 | 1:51.484 | 2:46.473 | 3:42.749 |
| 5 | Ashley Farquharson / Mueller & Haugsjaa / Jonathan Gustafson / Forgan & Kirkby | USA | 5 | 55.771 | 1:51.052 | 2:46.249 | 3:42.776 |
| 6 | Yulianna Tunytska / Hoi & Kachmar / Andriy Mandziy / Stetskiv & Mokh | UKR | 4 | 56.392 | 1:53.417 | 2:48.915 | 3:46.174 |
| 7 | Peixuan Wang / Jubayi & Hou / Zhenyu Bao / Gulijienaiti & Zhao | CHN | 2 | 56.760 | 1:56.368 | 2:49.492 | 3:46.842 |
| 8 | Klaudia Domaradzka / Chmielewski & Gancarczyk / Mateusz Sochowicz / Domowicz & Piwkowska | POL | 3 | 57.174 | 1:53.006 | 2:50.214 | 3:47.334 |
| 9 | Ioana-Corina Buzatoiu / Gitlan & Serban / Valentin Cretu / Stramaturaru & Manolescu | ROU | 1 | 56.794 | 1:56.504 | 2:56.095 | 3:49.931 |