List of Olympic medalists in luge


is one of the seven Olympic sports currently contested at the Winter Olympic Games. It has been a constant presence in the Olympic program since its introduction at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, in the form of three events: men's singles, women's singles, and doubles. A mixed team relay event was contested for the first time at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

History

luger Georg Hackl is the overall medal leader in the sport, having collected a total of five medals in the men's singles, during the six Winter Games in which he competed. Following his victory at the 1992 Winter Olympics, Hackl was the first male luger to successfully defend an Olympic title, in 1994. By repeating this feat in Nagano 1998, he joined two other men and two women who had won the same individual event in three consecutive Olympic Games. Hackl was also the first-ever Olympian to win at least one medal in five consecutive Olympics. This effort was matched by Armin Zöggeler of Italy, who won his fifth straight Olympic medal in the men's singles at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In 2002, Zöggeler outperformed Hackl and prevented him from reaching a unique fourth successive gold medal. Four years later, in Turin, Zöggeler became the second male luger to win back-to-back titles. Ten-time World Cup champion Markus Prock of Austria never fulfilled his success at Olympic level: in 1992 and 1994, Prock beat Georg Hackl to the World Cup title, but ended up losing the Olympic gold medal to the German.
In the women's event, Germany's Silke Kraushaar leads the medal count with three, one of each color. Steffi Martin and Sylke Otto—at 36, the oldest female individual gold medalist at the Winter Games—are the only lugers with two gold medals in their career. Ortrun Enderlein, representing the United Team of Germany, was the first woman to win the singles event in 1964. She was on the verge of defending her title at the 1968 Grenoble Games, having the best overall time after all the runs, but was disqualified together with fellow countrywomen Anna-Maria Müller and Angela Knösel when it was discovered that the runners in their sleds had been illegally heated before the runs. Müller made up for this by taking the gold medal at the following Games, in Sapporo, Japan.
The most successful pair in the history of the Olympic doubles event was Stefan Krauße and Jan Behrendt, who represented East Germany in 1988 and the reunified German Olympic team from 1992 to 1998, winning four medals: two golds, one silver, and one bronze. East Germany's Hans Rinn and Norbert Hahn, and Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger, are the other pairs to have won two times, both of them in consecutive Olympics. In 1972, two gold medals were awarded to an East German and an Italian pair, who finished with exactly the same time. To prevent similar situations in future Olympics, the Fédération Internationale de Luge de Course introduced timing equipment that measured accurately to one thousandth of a second, to replace the old equipment that measured in hundredths of a second.
As of the 2010 Winter Olympics, 117 medals have been awarded to 105 lugers representing nine National Olympic Committees. German lugers—representing the United Team of Germany, West Germany, East Germany, and Germany —have dominated this sport, collecting a total of 70 medals. There were seven occasions when a single NOC filled the podium with its athletes and in all of them they were German. After the Vancouver Games, Germany is the current medal-leading NOC in the sport with 31 medals, surpassing East Germany's 29 medals.
As the Italian luge team is completely recruited from South Tyrol, nearly all medal winners, except those from Soviet Union, Russia, United States and Latvia, are ethnically Germanic.

Medalists

Men's singles

RankNationGoldSilverBronze
1543
2423
3323
4222
5111
62
712
81
91

Women's singles

RankNationGoldSilverBronze
1664
2453
32
4123
511
611
712
81
81

Doubles

Team relay

Statistics

Medal leaders

Athletes that have won at least two medals are listed below. Medalists are sorted first by the total number of medals, then successively by the number of gold, silver and bronze medals. If a tie is still verified, medalists are ordered chronologically by their first medal.

Men

Women

Medals per year

NOC1924–60646872768084889294980206101418Total
32114211121322
22
5××××××××××××××5
×385346××××××××29
×33112××××××××10
×××××××4355455637
11121141121117
×××××××1124
××××××××12×3
231××××××××6
22115

Medal sweep events

These are events in which athletes from one NOC won all three medals.
GamesEventNOCGoldSilverBronze
1964 InnsbruckMen's SinglesThomas KöhlerKlaus-Michael BonsackHans Plenk
1972 SapporoMen's Singles *Wolfgang ScheidelHarald EhrigWolfram Fiedler
1972 SapporoWomen's SinglesAnna-Maria MüllerUte RühroldMargit Schumann
1984 SarajevoWomen's SinglesSteffi Walter-MartinBettina SchmidtUte Oberhoffner-Weiß
1988 CalgaryWomen's SinglesSteffi Walter-MartinUte Oberhoffner-WeißCerstin Schmidt
2002 Salt Lake CityWomen's SinglesSylke OttoBarbara NiedernhuberSilke Kraushaar
2006 TurinWomen's SinglesSylke OttoSilke KraushaarTatjana Hüfner