Olympic Luge

[bwells]

It appears that the Luge is a runaway ride on a sled with no control of speed or direction. I would assume there is no talent involved except that if you are fat, you will go faster due to gravity. Am I missing something here?

[Simon.O.]

It appears that the Luge is a runaway ride on a sled with no control of speed or direction. I would assume there is no talent involved except that if you are fat, you will go faster due to gravity. Am I missing something here?

Not wanting to get too techo here but firstly I know that they can and do steer them, secondly weight has a few effects and gravity is but one force that acts upon the combination of rider and sled.
There is friction, inertia, Cg and I am sure ther are other things that come into it.

I do agree with you to an extent, it does look like a lazy buggers passtime. I'll play

[Fluid]

I would assume there is no talent involved except that if you are fat, you will go faster due to gravity...

I am constantly amazed at how many folks will demonstrate their blunt ignorance by insulting someone else's sport. How many of the general public would think that the OP is childish and immature because he plays with toy boats?

There is a lot of skill involved in the luge. I have no experience on the ice, but have some with street luge. Believe me, there is a lot more than just guts involved to do it well. The luger does steer - and he doesn't use a wheel or stick but instead small movements of the legs, arms and shoulders. Keeping off the walls is the way to get low times, rubbing the walls slows you down and it is very difficult not to hit them. This skill is the major difference between an Olympic champion and a wannabe. It was an error in driving that led to the recent luge fatality in Vancouver. Nice touch insulting the sport after that incident.

As far as the disrespectful 'fat luger' comment - only highly fit athletes are successful, on some courses the luger experiences up to 7 Gs of force. That's fighter pilot territory.

Had the OP bothered to even google "luge", he'd not look so silly.....apparently if he knows nothing about a subject, it's 'stupid'.



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[NativePaul]

The front tips of the runners have blades that stick up and the rider can exert force on these flexing the front ends of the runners to control direction, if they couldn't steer or steered at the wrong time they would crash and die.

You wont see a fat bloke on the course because you have to travel the first 10 yards in about 2 seconds using just there arms to have enough entry speed for a decent run, and a fat bloke couldn't keep his head up during a sustained 5g banked turn and not being able to see where he was going would crash, they probably wouldn't be able to stay on the sled going from 1 turn to the next when there are far higher momentary g forces. These guys are supreme athletes, and even if they had ninja skills and could remember the course well enough not to crash and strapped themselves to the sled the drag from their big bellies at those speeds would mean they wouldn't have a chance.

[Doby]

It appears that the Luge is a runaway ride on a sled with no control of speed or direction. I would assume there is no talent involved except that if you are fat, you will go faster due to gravity. Am I missing something here?

Pretty stupid comment

You definetly are missing something....................

[bwells]

Okay, I stand corrected. Thanks for the explanation.

[westbeach]

Don't forget to remember that the luger's head head and legs are not supported at all, other than his core muscles doing the grunt work. You try and keep your head up and legs off the ground for the length of the run while steering with your legs and body weight shift. Talking about lazy or fat???!!! some people are just ignorant.

[bwells]

The fat thing was supposed to be humorous and I'm sorry it did not come off that way. I had no clue that at 90 MPH a little body shift would change the path and that they would have the pressence of mind to do that looking down a tube. I will watch with a different perspective. Thanks for your insight and I will now go lick my wounds.

[ozzie-crawl]

the luge is some thing i have always wanted to have a go at.
after watching the video of that athlete getting killed i would now think twice about haveing a go.
it is sad to see a young life taken, but at least he died doing some thing he loved

[andym]

but at least he died doing some thing he loved

May we all be so lucky,, but my love will have double D's

[westbeach]

His death was contributed to inexperience. His has not been in the sport long, and has always had last finishes. Just like any other sports, the less experience you are the more likely you are to get hurt or in extreme circumstances; death.

the luge is some thing i have always wanted to have a go at.
after watching the video of that athlete getting killed i would now think twice about haveing a go.
it is sad to see a young life taken, but at least he died doing some thing he loved

[befu]

Way to go

May we all be so lucky,, but my love will have double D's

Yep, when I die I want to be shot in the back in bed by an irate husband!

Brian