45 Fun Facts About Luge

In luge, how does the athlete lie on the sled?

Face up, feet first: lugers lie flat on their backs and hold the head low to cut air resistance, which helps them reach speeds above 140 km/h.

Which body part does a luger mainly use to steer the sled?

The calves: a luge sled has no steering gear and no brakes, so the slider presses a calf against one of the runners and adds small shifts of the shoulders.

Times in artificial-track luge are measured to what precision?

One thousandth of a second: luge is the only sliding sport timed so finely, and in 1994 the men's Olympic title was settled by just 0.013 seconds.

The word "luge" came into English from which language?

French: it was an Alpine dialect word for a small sled, used in Savoy and French-speaking Switzerland, while the German-speaking nations that dominate the sport call it Rodeln.

Luge and its sister sliding sports originated in which Swiss resort town?

St. Moritz is the cradle of the sliding sports: hotelier Caspar Badrutt's English winter guests raced adapted delivery sleds down its lanes, and the Cresta Run opened there in the mid-1880s.

Luge made its Olympic debut in 1964 in which Alpine host city?

Innsbruck: luge had been due to join the Games in 1960, but that year's hosts built no sliding track, so its debut had to wait for the next Games.

The luge federation was founded in 1957 in which Swiss resort, where the first international sled race was run in 1883?

Davos: hotels there staged the 1883 race down the road to Klosters, and a student from Australia shared first place with a local postman.

The first luge World Championships were held in 1955 in which city, host of the Winter Olympics three years earlier?

Oslo, Norway: eight nations sent lugers, and home slider Anton Salvesen took the men's title, a rare luge honour for a country far better known for skiing.

Through 2026, every Olympic luge gold but one has gone to German, Austrian or Italian sliders; which country won the other?

The Soviet Union won the 1980 women's singles, while the United States, for all its medals, has never won an Olympic luge gold.

Mārtiņš Rubenis's luge bronze in 2006 was the first Winter Olympic medal won under which country's flag?

Latvia: he bowed out eight years later with a second bronze, in the team relay, and the Latvian post office put the whole relay squad on a stamp.

Olympic singles lugers race four runs over two days; how is the winner decided?

Lowest combined time: every run counts, so one slip can undo two days of work, whereas doubles sleds race just twice, on a single day.

In the luge team relay, how does each finishing slider release the next sled?

Touching a touchpad at the finish opens the start gate for the next sled while the clock keeps running, and a team is disqualified if any of its sleds fails to hit the pad.

After the start tone, how does a luger get the sled moving?

A seated pull on fixed handles: sliders rock back and forth and then fling themselves forward, whereas the other sliding sports begin with a sprint beside the sled.

What are lighter lugers allowed to do to keep up with heavier rivals?

Wear extra weights: every slider is weighed before racing, and those below a set base weight may make up part of the difference, usually with a fitted weight vest.

Once a luge run has started, what do sliders use to claw extra speed from the ice?

Spiked gloves: sliders paddle at the ice with both hands for the first few metres, and officials check the size of the spikes before racing.

Which German luger, the "Speeding Weisswurst", won three straight Olympic singles golds from 1992 to 1998?

In 1998 he won by posting the fastest time in all four runs, and in 2002 he became the first Winter Olympian to medal at five straight Games.

At the 1992 Olympics, Austria's women's luge gold and silver medallists shared what connection?

They were sisters: Doris Neuner beat her older sister Angelika, and rival teams protested in vain that the Austrians' suits, strapped at the heel, broke the rules.

Besides luge, Germany's triple singles champion became a multiple world champion in what unusual sport?

Wok racing: celebrities slide down ice tracks in Chinese cooking woks on German television, and in 2006 the luge great lost his title to the singer Joey Kelly.

Which Austrian won ten overall luge World Cup titles but never an Olympic gold?

Markus Prock took two Olympic silvers and a bronze instead, and later managed the career of his nephew, ski jumping star Gregor Schlierenzauer.

What was Armin Zöggeler's profession outside luge during his career?

Carabiniere: he slid for the sports club of Italy's military police, and when offered the national flag for the 2010 opening ceremony he declined because his race began the next day.

Which German became the youngest luge world champion ever, aged 18, in 2008?

Felix Loch won the 2008 world title at Oberhof aged 18, the youngest luge world champion ever, and went on to win two Olympic singles golds.

German lugers first won all four Olympic luge golds at which Games?

Sochi 2014 was the first Games with four luge events, because the team relay had just been added, and Germany repeated the clean sweep in Beijing in 2022.

Which Austrian took a surprise 2018 Olympic gold when the German favourite faltered on his final run?

David Gleirscher had never stood on a World Cup podium before Pyeongchang; the German leader's error on the final run dropped him from first to fifth, handing Gleirscher gold.

Who is the only woman to win three individual Olympic luge golds?

Natalie Geisenberger sat out the 2019-20 season to have her first child, came back the next winter, and completed her hat-trick of singles titles in Beijing in 2022.

Erin Hamlin's 2014 Olympic bronze was a first for which group?

American women in luge had never reached an Olympic podium, although US men's doubles sleds won medals in 1998 and 2002; four years later she carried her country's flag at the opening ceremony.

Anne Abernathy, nicknamed 'Grandma Luge', slid at five Winter Olympics for which tropical US territory?

The US Virgin Islands: she raced from 1988 to 2002 and, at 52, qualified for a sixth Games in Turin, only to break her wrist in a training crash before the race.

Which American won silver in 2018, his country's first Olympic medal in men's singles luge?

Chris Mazdzer had finished 13th at both of his earlier Games, and he missed the gold by just 0.026 seconds over four runs.

Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a training crash at the 2010 Games while representing which country?

Kumaritashvili, a young slider from Georgia, crashed on the final curve of the Whistler track hours before the opening ceremony and was thrown into a steel support post.

How was Whistler's luge track slowed after Kumaritashvili's fatal crash in 2010?

Starting the sleds from lower start houses cut top speeds: the men raced from the women's start, which favoured the most powerful starters over the best drivers.

Where was the world's first permanent, artificially refrigerated luge track built in 1968?

Königssee in Bavaria, then West Germany, opened in 1968 as the first artificially refrigerated luge track; it hosted the 1969 World Championships and was badly damaged by the July 2021 floods.

The first refrigerated luge track in the United States was built for which Olympics?

1980 Lake Placid: the refrigerated run was finished in 1979 on Mount Van Hoevenberg, then torn down and replaced in 2000 by a combined track shared with the other sliding sports.

America's natural-track lugers train on a club-run course at Negaunee, in which Great Lakes state?

Michigan: the national team trains at Lucy Hill because it is the only natural track in the United States that is iced for competition.

On natural luge tracks, how do athletes brake before tight corners?

Spikes on the soles of their shoes: the rules forbid banked curves on natural tracks, so sliders often have to slow down before a bend.

The only natural luge track in the Southern Hemisphere is in which country?

Naseby, in New Zealand's Otago region, has the Southern Hemisphere's only natural luge track, a 360-metre run open to the public through the winter.

Three East German women were disqualified at the 1968 Olympics for allegedly doing what?

Heating their sled runners: warm steel melts the ice and cuts friction, and the three had stood first, second and fourth, so the gold passed to Italy's Erika Lechner.

What was unusual about the doubles result at the 1972 Sapporo Olympics?

Two teams tied and both received gold: Italy and East Germany clocked the same total after a faulty start gate had forced a rerun, and the rules made no provision for a tie.

Italy's Armin Zöggeler won so relentlessly that he earned which nickname, once given to cycling great Eddy Merckx?

The Cannibal: Il Cannibale, as Italians call him, won his first Olympic title in 2002 by halting a German rival's run of three straight golds.

Fuahea Semi, the first Tongan Winter Olympian, legally changed his name to what as a marketing ploy?

Bruno Banani is a German underwear label: a marketing agency had his passport issued in that name, and he still qualified for the 2014 Games, where he carried Tonga's flag.

Six-time Olympian Shiva Keshavan competed in luge for which country?

Keshavan, India's pioneering luger, competed at six Winter Olympics from 1998 to 2018, once under the Olympic flag while India's committee was suspended, after first qualifying for Nagano at 16.

Where was the sliding federation that first governed luge founded in 1913?

The Internationaler Schlittensportverband was founded in Dresden, Germany in 1913 and ran the sport until 1935, when it was absorbed into the bobsleigh federation, the FIBT.

Which event made its Olympic luge debut at Cortina in 2026?

Women's doubles: what had been a single open doubles event was split in two, and Italy's Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer won the first title on their home track.

In 1954 the IOC voted to bring luge into the Winter Olympics in place of which sport?

Skeleton: it could then be raced on only one track in the world, and it did not return to the Games until 2002.

Street luge, the pavement version of the sport, was born where?

Southern California: at the Signal Hill downhill skateboard races of the 1970s, riders found they went faster lying on their backs, a style first known as lay-down skateboarding.

Italy's Gerda Weissensteiner won Olympic luge gold in 1994 and, twelve years later, a bronze medal in which other sport?

Bobsleigh: she came back as a pilot and took bronze in the two-woman event at her home Games in Turin, aged 37.

At its first Olympics, the luge team relay had one man, one woman and what?

A doubles pair: teams ran three sleds in turn until 2026, when the relay grew to four sleds.