Now it starts

Tuesday night at the luge track I heard what quite possibly was the best sports chant ever.

Yeah, I know. The best sports chant - at a LUGE track?

No, my brain isn’t frozen. This chant was extraordinary.

It was better than “Darr-ylll ”¦ Darr-yllll,”? that fans used to taunt Darryl Strawberry.

It was better than “Who’s your daddy?”? that Yankees fans chanted to bedevil former Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez.

It was even better than “That’s alright, that’s OK, you’re going to work for us someday.”? (This one may be apocryphal, but supposedly Northwestern students used it when they used to get pounded in Big Ten football.)

The chant I heard Tuesday night erupted without warning from the German luge fans. After the first 21 women lugers had finished their runs, there were only three competitors left. They were all German, they were leading the competition and they were poised to sweep the gold, silver and bronze medals. So their fans starting chanting in German: “Now it starts, Now it starts.”?

To the German fans, the other luge racers were irrelevant. They were a mere warm-up act. The real show was just beginning. And they were right.

The three German women rocketed down the track and shredded everyone else’s medal hopes. This was nothing new. German women swept the luge medals four years ago at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. They’ve won 65 straight World Cup luge events. And they’ve captured 27 of the 36 Olympic luge medals since the sport was introduced in 1964.

Before coming to the Turin Olympics, I knew very little about Germany's dominance in women’s luge. Now I do. Now it starts — indeed.