— The Associated Press

WHISTLER, British Columbia — For a welcome moment, grief gave way to gold in luge.

Germany`s Felix Loch, speeding safely through the final curve where a fellow Olympian tragically died just two days earlier, won a gold medal on Sunday and brought brief but needed comfort to a sport rocked by criticism it put performance above protection of its athletes.

Loch finished his four heats in 3 minutes, 13.085 seconds, well ahead of teammate David Moeller (3:13.764) and Italy`s Armin Zoeggeler (3:14.375), the two-time defending Olympic champion.

Officials, under pressure after 21-year-old Georgian slider Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a practice crash Friday, shortened the track by moving the starts down the mountain. The alteration worked to slow the sleds, but the changes may have tilted the balance of competition.

American Tony Benshoof, who finished eighth, understood the reasoning behind moving the start and respected the decision, but that didn`t mean he liked it.

“Lowering the start really, really put me at a disadvantage,“ said Benshoof, who spent two years preparing for a steep start on the Whistler track he felt suited his strengths. “The second they did that, they basically gave the Germans two medals, which was frustrating.

“But I`m not making excuses. We all had the same situation.“

Kumaritashvili died after being thrown from his sled at nearly 90 mph and getting catapulted into an exposed steel beam. The spot is now marked as a memorial with candles and flowers.

His shocking death, just hours before the cauldron was ignited in Vancouver, rattled many of his competitors — and the entire Olympic family — and forced luge officials to consider canceling the competition. Instead, they decided the games would go on, but only after altering the course so there would be no repeat of the harrowing accident on this beautiful mountaintop.

Loch, already a two-time world champion at age 20, is the youngest luge Olympic gold medalist in history. Fellow German Dettlef Gunther was 21 when he won gold at the Innsbruck Games in 1976.

Of the 13 golds awarded in Olympic luge, nine have gone to Germans.

A frustrated Benshoof, sliding in pain with three herniated disks in his back, was fourth at Turin in 2006. He missed a medal in Italy by less than one-fifth of a second. The U.S. has never won an Olympic medal in singles luge.

 

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