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BEIJING, China – Eins, zwei, drei! In German it means one, two, three.

And for the German bobsleigh team, it is also a page of history.

Germany, arguably the world’s sliding superpower, became the first nation to monopolize medals in an Olympic bobsleigh race, winning gold, silver and bronze in the two-man event at the Beijing.

Francesco Friedrich is now a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and with Thorsten Margis he won in three minutes, 56.89 seconds. Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer were second in 3:57.38, and Christoph Hafer and Matthias Sommer held on for third in 3:58.58.

Canada, defending champion, was excluded from the podium. 2018 PyeongChang gold medalist Justin Kripps and teammate Cam Stones couldn’t do better than 10th place. It was the duo of Albertan Kristopher Spring and Ottawa’s Mike Evelyn who scored the best result in the Canadian camp with 7th place.

Albertans Taylor Austin and Daniel Sunderland finished 20th, more than four seconds behind the winners.

Germany now has seven gold medals in sliding at the Beijing Games, more gold medals than any nation has ever won in the bobsleigh, skeleton and luge events at the Olympics. The Germans also have 12 medals in sliding events so far in Beijing, technically another record for any nation participating in sliding sports. East Germany and West Germany had totaled 12 medals at the Games in Innsbruck in 1976.

Switzerland finished fourth with the team of Michael Vogt and Sandro Michel posting a time of 3:58.83. Austrians Benjamin Maier and Markus Sammer finished fifth in 3:59.12. And the Principality of Monaco clinched sixth place, their best result in an Olympic sporting event, with Rudy Rinaldi and Boris Vain completing their four runs in 3:59.14.

This evening, however, was Germany’s affair. Like almost everything else so far at Yanqing Sliding Center.

Germany won gold in all four luge events and then gold in both skeleton events. The only time ‘Das Deutschlandlied’ hasn’t been the national anthem when flags celebrating a new Olympic champion are hoisted onto the track was on Monday, when Kaillie Humphries won gold for the United States in the monobob competition.

There are two sliding events remaining at the Beijing Olympics: the women’s two-man race which ends on Saturday and the four-man event which ends on Sunday. Friedrich is the clear favorite to win gold in the four-man event, defending champion Mariama Jamanka was fastest in the ladies’ first day of practice on Tuesday, and that means the medal haul of Germany is probably not complete.