Germany, either East, West or unified, have won seven of the 10 four-man bobsleigh Olympic gold medals since the 1976 Innsbruck Games.
They did not win in Vancouver in 2010, while the Russian winners of the 2014 Olympics have since been disqualified for doping. The Germans have also won the last three golds in the two-man bob.
"We will be challenging for medals," said Hoppe, who won six Olympic medals both for East Germany and Germany after reunification in 1990, and also coached Sandra Kiriasis to 2006 Olympic gold. He now works for the bobsleigh federation as a youth coaching coordinator.
"The results of the past weeks have shown growth. The Canadians and the Americans look good and Switzerland can play a role. It is a question of the form on the day, a fine-tuning of equipment. But I think we will be competing for medals."
The Germans' performances so far this season have been impressive, with a top-three finish in St Moritz at the weekend in the four-man bob being denied only due to a disqualification over weight.
"It is a purposeful sport, single-minded," Hoppe said, adding that Germans received high-level training from a very young age given the competition.
"The athletes have good skills going into competitions. The are used to high-level training from youth level," Hoppe said.
Germany is also the only nation in the world with four sliding centres. By comparison Canada and the United States have two while Switzerland has just one.
"These four tracks offer athletes the chance to use them regularly. That makes for intense training from early on," Hoppe said.
The 60-year-old Hoppe, who won two gold medals at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and was also unified Germany's flag bearer at the 1992 Albertville Games, said German reunification and the collapse of the Soviet Union had further increased competition among German athletes.
"From two countries we (Germans) suddenly became one, with a lot of good athletes and coaches. The Soviet Union broke away into several countries, Yugoslavia as well."
"We in Germany in a way were disadvantaged because we had to work that much harder to just be selected to compete at big events. Competition was fierce."
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
