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Sport of the Week – Olympic Luge (Winter)
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Have you ever been sledding? Well, luge is a lot like that, except you’re going down the hill at eighty miles per hour in this little track that will slam you around if you’re not careful. Only the best make it to the Winter Olympics, and well, Germany appears to be the best. John and Geoff go over the history and current state of Luge in the Winter Olympics in this edition of Sport of the Week.
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Raw Notes Below:
- Where/When did it start
- Vikings invented it. Built big old luge sleds back in 800 AD
- Luge is the French word for Toboggan
- Introduced into Olympics in 1964, Innsbruck, Austria
- Biggest difference between luge and skeleton is skeleton goes head first, luge goes feet first
- 1879: Davos, Switzerland, builds the first luge track.
- 1883: Switzerland hosts the first international sled race.
- Reach above 80 mph
- Manuel Pfister of Austria, reached a top speed of 154 km per hour (95.69 mph) on the track in Whistler, Canada prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics.
- Who plays it
- Since weight is an advantage, male athletes must weigh at least 198 lbs (90 kg), and women must weigh at least 165 lbs (75 kg)
- Events – Track length is between 6/10th mile and 9/10th mile
- Men’s Singles
- 4 attempts, all times added up after day 2
- Women’s Singles
- 4 attempts, all times added up after day 2
- Doubles
- Could be male/male, male/female, female/female
- Two runs in one day
- Team Relay
- Women’s single, Men’s single, double
- Woman goes, has to hit a button at the finish line which opens the gate and the man goes, hits to button, doubles go
- Little flappy guy that hangs down
- Introduced in 2014
- Men’s Singles
- Best Known for the sport
- Germany – 75 medals (4 versions of their country – Germany, West Germany, East Germany, United Team of Germany)
- Luge to Germany is really what baseball is to the U.S. in a lot of ways. A good example is they have elementary school championships,
- Swept Sochi in all 4 categories
- Italy – 17 total, 7 gold – still mostly ethnic Germans
- Austria – 19 total, 5 gold
- …US no gold, but 5 medals
- Germany – 75 medals (4 versions of their country – Germany, West Germany, East Germany, United Team of Germany)
- Terms
- Steels
- Bridges
- Runners and bow
- Spiked gloves
- delivery boys’ sleds
- Fun Facts
- Performance is timed to one thousandth of a second
- US Team is sponsored by White Castle
- No world records, as all tracks are different lengths
- Finishing without the sled disqualifies you
- Most Famous
- Armin Zöggeler – Italy (2 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze) [Armeen Zoog uh lair]
- only athlete to have won one medal in a single individual event in six Olympics (furthermore consecutive).
- Georg Hackl – Germany (3 gold, 2 silver) [GAY-org
- In 2002 went to Porsche to make his sled faster (got a silver)
- Armin Zöggeler – Italy (2 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze) [Armeen Zoog uh lair]
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