Luge at the 2006 Torino Winter Games:

Reigning Olympic champion Armin Zöggeler had home ice advantage for the Torino Winter Olympics but would have started as a strong favourite wherever the competition had been held. Zöggeler also held the world title, having won it for the fifth time in 2005. Georg Hackl was back for an attempt on a remarkable sixth successive medal at this event but, at 39 years old, he was not the athlete he had been in previous Games and his final Olympics ended with him finishing down in seventh place.

Instead the real threat to Zöggeler came from another veteran slider in the shape of 34-year-old Albert Demchenko of Russia. Demchenko was in the form of his life and had won the 2006 European Championship and the 2004-05 World Cup title. Things went relatively smoothly for the Italian on the first day and he led the field but the gap over Demchenko and America’s Tony Benshoof was not enough to yet to be confident of victory. In fact the Russian did close slightly on Zöggeler during the second half of the event but not by the required margin and the Italian, watched by six million of his countrymen on TV, became the second man to retain an Olympic luge title. Mārtiņš Rubenis became Latvia’s first Winter Games medallist when he edged Benshoof down to fourth although it should be pointed out that Latvians had previously won medals as part of Soviet teams.