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Luge Yourself

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41 pointskawera10 comments

It always amazes me what kind of things you grow up with nearby can be a live long dream for other people (Its probably the same for other people with surfing). As kids, it was just one of the many thing we did, that we were invited at school by the local club to try this sport with them one day for free. Sure, it we did not get a suit and we had to carry the sledge our selves but we won prices in the end and if was generally fun. Well, at least so much as going down a few times is interesting but from the tenth time on the same track it would become repetitive and less engaging than building your own tracks in snow and trying them out, improving etc.

Yes. I like to call the winter Olympics the privilege Olympics.

Summer Olympics is running and jumping, throwing sticks or stones, and wrestling each other

Winter Olympics is zipping down a multi-million dollar luge track

I would not go that far. With every type of olympics these days, you need to have money to fully concentrate on the sport (including many years before you become successful). There may be some sports that require less dedicated support like running but when a nation like India that has about 1 on 6 people wins 1 or 2 medals in summer olympics again and again it should become clear that those games aren't any different.

Can I just say I love this article layout, dead simple minimalist but with full-width high-quality short gifs? It really feels like the state of the art settling down to something standard and excellent.

Hyperfocus is amazing. I also suffer from anxiety and, if I don't luge, I get the same experience as the girl in the video on a racetrack with my superbike. For 20 minutes at a time it's just me and the machine and everything else disappear. Ironically, the best place for me to get inner peace is on a piece of metal gushing down the track at 140mph.

I am curious, what differentiates between competitors at events like the Olympics? My naive assumption is that the speed you go is largely controlled by the shape of the track, and gravity.

What does a competitor need to do in order to win, other than stay on the track?

Not that I have any experience, but I would guess it's mostly in the skill of negotiating the curves with minimal loss of speed, while not crashing.

They touch on these key skills in the video. Apparently mental focus is a lot of it as well.

Control the sled to steer it along a "racing line" that will net you the best time.

More difficult than it looks, especially when you're hurtling down the track, one slight miss of the line and you'll see hundredths of a second shaved off your run, which will cost you

See the top 10 womens singles results from Sochi in 2014, the top 10 spots are within 2.9s.

[1] https://www.olympic.org/sochi-2014/luge/singles-women

Start on the track, without creating... And do it quickly. The start is important, and taking the turns cleanly. Despite the fact that she is just laying the, it is harder than it looks

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