Johannes Ludwig of Germany won his first individual Olympic gold in the men's luge singles with a convincing performance at the Beijing Winter Olympics in Yanqing on Sunday.

The 35-year-old German finished four runs at the National Sliding Center in three minutes and 48.735 seconds, 0.160 seconds faster than Austrian slider Wolfgang Kindl.

Dominik Fischnaller of Italy won the bronze in 3:49.686. German legend Felix Loch finished fourth in 3:49.878 to see his bid for a third singles gold fall through.

Ludwig, who led halfway with a 0.039-second advantage over Kindl after two runs on Saturday, posted two fastest runs on Sunday and gave his Austrian chaser no chance to overtake.

Ludwig has been hitting top form this season, winning the overall World Cup title before coming to the Beijing Winter Olympics.

He revealed that he bore no pressure as the overall World Cup winner into the Olympic competition.

"I was very relaxed before this race, when I woke up this morning I had seven hours' sleep. And it was good for me," said Ludwig, who took a bronze at the PyeongChang Games four years ago.

"I was just wondering if it was the right thing that I was so relaxed today and was really worried about it," he said.

Defending champion David Gleirscher of Austria made mistakes in both of final two runs on Sunday and finished 15th.