Beijing 2022 - Luge
With the first international races held back in 1883, and its origins tracing hundreds of years earlier, luge is among the world’s oldest winter sports. Despite its long history, luge didn’t make its Olympic debut until 1964. The program included men’s singles, women’s singles and doubles — officially an open event but one that has featured only male competitors in its Olympic history. That program remained unchanged until 2014, when a team relay event was added.
Germany and German-speaking nations have been the land of luge ever since the beginning of international competition. Germany leads all countries in all-time Olympic gold medals and total medals, with the former East Germany occupying second place in both categories. Austria ranks third and West Germany fifth, interrupted by Italy in fourth.
Team USA has come on strong of late, but it took until 1998 for any Americans to find their way onto the podium. The doubles team of Chris Thorpe and Gordy Sheer won silver that year in Nagano, Japan, while teammates Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin were right behind them. The U.S. would win those same doubles medals in 2002, but it took until 2014 for Team USA to win its first singles medal. Erin Hamlin came away with bronze that year, and in 2018 Chris Mazdzer would win the first medal on the men’s side with silver.
The Olympic format doubles the pressure on singles competitors. Unlike the world cup circuit that takes place over two runs, Olympic luge is contested over four runs for singles. Doubles consists of two runs. The times are added together, and the lowest total time wins.
While the singles and doubles competitions are pretty straightforward, the team relay competition is a frenetic race to the bottom with each country represented by three sleds — one from each competition. Once at the finish line, athletes must hit a touchpad to open the gate for the next sled to start. Nothing happens slowly in a sport that sees athletes reaching speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, with no brakes to slow them down.
Luge, along well fellow sliding sports bobsled and skeleton, will be contested at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre in the Yanqing area 45 miles northwest of Beijing.
Updated on January 28, 2022.