Germany's expected stronghold on the luge medals at Milan Cortina 2026 looked to be stuttering in early practice, but the Germans showed their class and experience on their final runs on Friday.

Since the sport joined the Olympic program in 1964, the Germans have taken 38 of the 52 available luge golds, including 11 of the last 12.

Four years ago in Beijing they had a clean sweep of four golds — along with two silvers — and have won the men's singles in three of the last four Games.

In the early rounds of practice this week, the German trio of Max Langenhan, Felix Loch and Timon Grancagnolo were generally off the pace, though Austrian Wolfgang Kindl did warn not to read too much into the initial runs, saying that some athletes, including the Germans, were holding something back.

Double-world champion Langenhan proved that theory when he clocked 52.936 seconds for the only sub-53 second run of the week.

World Cup leader Loch, who won gold in 2010 and 2014 but just missed out on a medal in the last two Games, was the only one of the German trio who looked to be on pace early on. His two teammates also arrived to the party at just the right time in the sixth and final practice run on Friday. Loch clocked the 4th-fastest final run while Grancagnolo was 6th.

Kindl, silver medalist four years ago, and Italy's Dominik Fischnaller, who won bronze in Beijing, were consistently among the fastest performers in the first four practice runs on Wednesday and Thursday. They finished 3rd and 5th in the final run, respectively.

Kristers Aparjods was 2nd-fastest in the final training run and is hoping to secure a second-ever medal in the event for Latvia — 20 years after the country's first.

American Jonny Gustafson, who is set to compete in his second Games, posted a top-10 time in four of his six training runs, logging a tenth-best 53.606 in his final run after starting 8th. First-time Olympian Matthew Greiner clocked 53.841 seconds in his final run, slotting in at 17th of 25 competitors. 

The United States' most recent Olympic medal in luge came at PyeongChang 2018 when Chris Mazdzer took home silver in the singles competition. 

Men's luge singles competition is set to begin Saturday, Feb. 7, with Run 1 at 11 a.m. ET and Run 2 at 12:30 p.m. Both will stream live on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com.

Reuters contributed to this report.