How to not lose at luge

Do you wanna go faster? Don't look down. Image used under license from Shutterstock.com

Ever watch luge? On a Saturday afternoon in Bavaria, or at least every four years at the Olympics? Ever wonder, as you watch the winner edge past a very worthy opponent by a fraction of a second, just what the heck she or he did better?

Alpenfolk know. They’re down with der Rodel the way Canadians are down with hockey and Spaniards with jai alai. They show up 10,000 strong to guzzle gluhwein and rattle cowbells, rising and falling with the action like fans at a Serbian soccer derby. (Well, maybe not quite.)

It’s little wonder. Luge is the fastest Olympic sport, and the only non-motorized race decided by thousandths of a second: slivers of time normally reserved for shutter speeds and wing beats of hummingbirds. For most speed sports like downhill skiing and bobsleigh, hundredths of a second are enough. But luge needs that finer fraction to separate heroes from also-rans more often than you‘d think.

So what combination of wisdom, guts and gear lets athletes blow by their uber-conditioned and hyper-equipped colleagues in the maniacal pursuit of speed?

Read on to learn more about harnessing physics through strength, skill, engineering, and sheer locked-down focus in the world of competitive sledding.

Luge: The art of not steering

Bavarians started all of this. But right now, humanity has 16 Olympic-level sliding tracks at our disposal, each with its own special way of bending gravity.

These Kunstbahn (artificial tracks) are engineering marvels: a kilometre or so of refrigerated ice, sculpted with drops, straightaways and turns that run from playful zigzags through multi-curve “labyrinths” to intense full-circle Kreisels.

Professional toboggan runs need to be both challenging and safe for experienced drivers of bobsleds, luges and skeleton sleds. So slopes can’t exceed 11%. Ice is hand-sprayed smooth. An uphill at the finish slows momentum. And, like any good waterslide, the generously banked curves are carefully designed to keep sliders in the track - where they belong.

Some sliders love the high speed of open “gliding” tracks like Park City, USA. Others thrive on sharp and intense “steering” tracks, like Konigsee in Germany.

Sound like fun? How about we try one?

Head to the top of your imaginary track and get comfortable on your 25 kg sled. What do you see before you? Only the first few of at least a dozen curves. Not to worry, you’ll be through them all in less than a minute.

Ready? Let’s do this.

Grab the start handles, slide back and forth once or twice, and then slingshot yourself forward like opening a switchblade. Paddle the ice like mad with your spiked gloves to leave all that inertia behind. But make it quick: lose a tenth of a second here and it’s tripled by the finish line.

Now lay back flat—no wind resistance please—and let gravity take over. Here we go.

The first curve opens like a lily, lifting your sled onto the wall and flipping you in a new direction, like the wind lifting a paper plate. But you’re still slow-ish (say about 40 km/hr), so not much to report.

Speed snowballs as your mass bows to the planet’s magnetic pull, your diamond-paste-polished steel runners and completely aerodynamic body position letting you laugh in the face of friction. As a result, by the next curve, along with that adrenaline, you’re now feeling a couple Gs of pressure on your lycra-clad body as intense centripetal force and speed magnify the effect of gravity.

If you don’t have a plan at this point, the curve will eat you up.

Do nothing and you’ll likely scrape the top lip, drop into the belly of the curve, and spend the rest of the ride with your sled unhelpfully on top of you. Steer like hell and you might hit the inside wall. Neither of which are pleasant—heard of ice burn?

How to do it well? Ay, there’s the rub.

Each curve presents a unique challenge. Some curves start wide, then tighten up. Others start tight, release, then lock you up again. Some need steering all the way through. Others, only subtle pressure on the runners.

To ace this thing, you’ll need to find that perfect line through each curve, the one that gives you steady acceleration with the least amount of steering. Because every little bit of steering creates friction and slows you down, and heaven knows you wouldn’t want that. Rise and fall on the curve’s wall too much and you lengthen your descent line—and your finish time.

Of course that elusive ideal line will depend on whether you’re 100 lbs or 200. But the common strategy is this: combine absolute respect for the physics of the turn with some ultra-subtle steering (more on this later) to stay just high enough on entry. Then, while dropping into the exit, you can ride the wave of earthly forces to rocket out of the curve like a surfer out of the curl.

Yeah. And do it all while using your wrestler-calibre neck muscles to stop your head from dragging on the ice.

Pause for slo-mo with voiceover: That’s what hooks a slider on luge: the endless pursuit of the fastest way down. And sometimes, just sometimes, a gutsy and creative slider finds a faster line, and the game is afoot.

Focus now. Back on the track, the turns are coming at you like a spider monkey, up to the left, up to the right. Now the straightaway: seems easy, but just try going straight. Newbs and veterans alike can drift, overcorrect and pinball off the walls like drunks. What now? Here’s a little uphill just to mess with you. And by the time you hit full speed (120 to 140 km/hr), you’re feeling the full 3 to 5 Gs of pressure—about what astronauts feel at lift-off. Wha-at!?

Did I mention you can’t lift your head? It only slows you down and takes you out of the (cool) running. So you need a perfect mental model of each track and hyper-developed peripheral vision to read what’s coming.

Make it over the finish line intact? Or at least somehow holding onto all parts of your shattered sled? (Not kidding, that’s an actual rule.) Good! Then the uphill finish lane will slow you down a bit, but you also have to sit up and pull up (hard!) on your runners. Them’s your brakes.

What did you think? Keen to go back up and find the fastest way down? Or just the fastest way to the brauhaus for a stein of beer?

Thanks so much to Canadian lugers Tyler Seitz, Marie Jane Bowie and Chris Wightman for their contributions to this story.