Germany’s speed skating icon Claudia Pechstein has lost her place as the best German winter Olympian. Natalie Geisenberger has been on the throne since Thursday (02/10/2022). Followed by their two-seater colleagues Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt.
“Record doesn’t matter”
Exceptional luger Geisenberger bagged her fifth and sixth gold medals at the Olympic Games in Beijing and passed Pechstein. After victories in Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018, the 34-year-old from Miesbach in Bavaria was the first to win the individual competition for the third time in a row. In the team relay, too, she followed up with a “gold hat trick”. In addition to her six gold medals, she also won a bronze in the individual at her first Olympics in 2010.
The “number 1” in the all-time list of the best did not trigger a major emotional outburst. “I don’t give a damn about the records at the moment”, Geisenberger said after her historic feat. You take it from her.
After torture follows the gold fairy tale
Even if medals are always expected from the German stars in the ice channel, not much pointed to the success stories of Geisenberger and Wendl/Arlt at the highlight of the season.
The first flying visit to China in autumn 2021 was a nightmare for the lugers – especially for Geisenberger and Tobias Arlt. National coach Norbert Loch spoke of an “torture” in an interview with Sportschau. “I grew three years older in two and a half weeks”, so hole. Twelve of his athletes had to be isolated, including Geisenberger. Arlt got it worse. He spent two days in a quarantine hotel after a false positive test.
Geisenberger even left an Olympic start open in the middle of the season, Wendl/Arlt only managed a meager win of the season in the World Cup.
Difficult preparation
Maybe it was the anger in the stomach that drove the tobogganists to do their best. Maybe also the anger about the difficult preparation. The training track at Königssee was completely destroyed by the heavy storm in summer in Berchtesgadener Land. After Oberhof could not be avoided.
Geisenberger and Co. went tobogganing in Lillehammer for the first time at the end of September/beginning of October. “We have completed about 40 percent fewer runs than in previous years”said the 59-year-old Loch at the start of the season.
Not even Rodelfuchs Loch would have bet that there would be four gold medals at the Olympics at the end of this messed-up preparation.
The tobogganists as medal hamsters
Loch was a successful luger himself, but he never won an Olympic medal as an active athlete. As national coach, he has been a “golden hamster” since 2008 and is responsible for the grandiose toboggan era, which, however, had already begun before the hole time.