Andre Lange of Germany rode into the Olympic bobsleigh history books on Sunday, winning an unprecedented fourth career gold medal by dominating the two-man competition, dpa reported.
Lange, 36, and brakeman Kevin Kuske took the lead after the second run and never looked back en route to the historic win with a combined total of 3 minutes 26.65 seconds in their shiny blue bob at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
The silver also went to Germany as Thomas Flohrschuetz and Richard Adjei clocked 3:26.87. Alexandr Zubkov and Alexey Voevoda claimed the first medal for Russia in the sport, a bronze in 3:27.51 minutes.
"For me it is a historical medal, to win the Olympic gold again, but it will take for me to realise what's happened," said Lange, who is competing in his last season.
"This has been a long career for me, many years of fighting and hoping, racing and medals, which is now nearly over."
Lange won four-man gold in 2002 and a two- and four-man double in 2006, with Kuske on all teams. No other bobsledder has won four Olympic golds, with East German pilot Manfred Nehmer on three golds from 1976 and 1980.
Lange is also the favourite in the four-man team where he could complete another double, which would also be an Olympic first.
The two-man training and competition was overshadowed by several accidents on the treacherous course on which Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a training crash on February 12.
Swiss gold medal contender Beat Hefti was unable to compete after a training crash on Wednesday and Canadian hopeful Lyndon Rush tipped over in the second run on Saturday and had to settle for 15th in the end he decided to continue on Sunday.
"I didn't do very good. I dropped the ball. We could have done so well," said Rush.
Lange and Kuske, meanwhile, roared down the track with more than 150kph on their brand new runners from the famed institute for research and development of sports equipment (FES) in Berlin.
Florschuetz drew first blood with a track record of 51.57 in the first run to lead Lange by two hundredth of a second.
Lange responded instantly in the second to lead by 11 hundredth overnight, equalled the track record on Sunday in the third round to go 16 hundredth clear and eventually sealed Germany's third straight win in the event by .22 of a second.
"For me it is a really happy end, I didn't really expect to win here," said Lange.
The others were left to pay tribute to the legend Lange.
"I have a lot of respect for him and you just watch him, he is like a machine," said Rush.
Florschuetz said: "We are really happy to win silver because, well, we tried everything, but Andre didn't make any mistakes."
Olympic bobsleigh continues Tuesday and Wednesday with the women's race while the men's four-man event rounds off the action on Friday and Saturday.
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