Rzhanaya Polyana, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) - Germany completed a sweep of the luge events at the 2014 Olympics with a gold medal in the first-ever team relay.
Natalie Geisenberger, Felix Loch and the doubles team of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt all won gold medals in their respective events earlier in Sochi, and on Thursday the champions combined for a flawless performance to make it 4-for-4.
Russia finished second for the silver medal and Latvia took the bronze.
Thursday's competition featured four-person teams consisting of one woman and one male single luger as well as a two-man doubles team. Each athlete needed to tap a special touch-pad to automatically open the in-run gate for the next team member.
Germany, which started 10th in the 12-nation field, had the fastest time for each run to dominate the event.
Latvia was sitting at the top of the standings before the Russians slipped into first, but the Germans were yet to come.
Geisenberger's split of 54.095 seconds easily set the pace on the women's side. Loch was next and tapped the pad with a time of 55.639 to open the gate for the doubles team, which posted a time of 55.915 seconds to give the Germans a combined time of 2 minutes, 45.649 seconds.
Russia, led by 42-year-old silver medalist Albert Demtschenko, finished 1.030 seconds behind. Latvia was 1.646 off the lead pace, but edged Canada by just 1/10th of a second for the bronze.
The United States got off to a great start behind women's bronze medalist Erin Hamlin. Her time was bettered only by Geisenberger, but Christopher Mazdzer and the team of Christian Niccum and Jayson Terdiman were unable to match and the Americans finished sixth overall.