CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy -- Germany's Max Langenhan, who feared he would have to withdraw from singles competition because of serious neck pain, became his country's latest Olympic luge champion Sunday night.
The two-time defending World Cup overall champion finished ahead of Austria's Jonas Mueller and Italy's Dominik Fischnaller for the first of the 12 sliding gold medals to be awarded in these Games.
He finished four runs over two days in 3 minutes, 31.191 seconds. Mueller was second in 3:31.787, and Fischnaller got his second consecutive Olympic men's singles bronze medal by finishing in 3:32:125.
Langenhan posted the fourth-biggest winning margin in Olympic men's singles luge history.
USA Luge was paced by Jonny Gustafson, who finished 11th, while Olympic rookie Matthew Greiner was 20th for the Americans.
Among other notables: Two-time Olympic gold medalist and current World Cup leader Felix Loch of Germany was sixth, and Austria's Wolfgang Kindl -- the only luge athlete in these Olympics competing in both singles and doubles -- was eighth.
There's something fitting about Germany, Austria and Italy ending up on the medal stand. They are the only nations to ever win gold in men's singles at the Olympics -- with Germany far, far, far ahead of the rest of that pack.
Germany now has won 12 of the 17 Olympic men's singles luge gold medals. Italy has three, Austria the other two.
Langenhan is the ninth German man to win the singles Olympic gold, and he beat serious contenders for this title.
Fischnaller, the husband of longtime USA Luge women's star Emily Fischnaller, was mobbed by Italian sliders, all in white puffy coats, as he crossed the finish line. There was one blue coat jumping around in that mass hug -- his wife, who was wearing her U.S. colors for the occasion.
The women's singles event starts Monday and finishes Tuesday. The men's doubles event is Wednesday, as is the women's doubles race, which is making its Olympic debut. The team relay on Thursday concludes the luge slate at these Olympics.