Today we’re going to discuss what it’s like to take a luge run! We spoke with two retired lugers, 2014 Olympian Kate Hansen and Canadian national team luger Brendan Hauptman about what it’s like to get down the track on a luge sled. We’ll start with how to get your mind right, then go into corners and steering, and finally what happens at the end when you’ve seen how your time turned out.
Basic Luge Terminology
Handles: The two bars that luge athletes pull themselves forward with to start their run.
Spikes: On luge gloves, the spikes are on the fingertips and are used to help paddle down the start ramp.
Runners: The bottom of the sled that goes on the ice.
Kufens: The hook at the foot of the sled that luge athletes use to steer with.
Pod: The main “body” of the sled that the athletes sit/lay in while sliding.
Pressures: When a sled is in a curve, the G-forces that an athlete feels while in that curve.
Line: The route a slider takes along the track.
Kreisel: A roundabout curve that goes anywhere from 270 to 360 degrees. The one in Beijing is a full 360.
Getting Your Mind Right
Before you do anything on the sliding track you first have to get your mind right. Depending on the slider, there are many different ways that an athlete prepares in their mind just before their run.
For Hansen, it was about clearing her mind of everything.
“The last thing I think about, and I’m sure this is different for everyone, is when I’m at the handles I’m trying to clear my mind. The work’s been done and if it hasn’t been then you’re screwed anyway!”
“So you’re at the handles and I’m usually looking up at the mountains or something and my head is blank. And I’m thinking about surfing, and the best wave I ever caught, and it puts a smile on my face and gets me excited to be there and gets me in the moment.”
Hauptman, on the other hand, needed one last run down the track in his head.
“I do a quick little run-through, maybe 15 seconds to go over the corner and the basics. Then I make sure I have all of my equipment ready, go through my visor, spikes, and everything, then I sit down on the sled and do one more quick mind run and remember the key points of my run.”
Sliding, Steering, and Not Steering
At that point, it’s time to slide. The athlete will rock back once or twice to get a really good pull, then pull as hard as they can on the handles and paddle down the start ramp. Depending on the length and steepness of the start ramp, sliders will paddle roughly anywhere from two to seven times (sometimes more). Once they’ve laid back on the sled they’ve now got to steer their way down. That’s where things get complicated.
You may hear that luge is “steering with your feet”, but it’s much, much more than that.
“To say we steer with only our feet is only like one piece of a five piece puzzle,” Hansen explains. “If you got down the track with just your feet it probably wouldn’t be too great of a run. At least for luge every piece of our body matters, if I’m going to steer with my feet but my shoulders aren’t starting that steer than you’re going to end up counter-steering the sled.”
“The foot steers are the really big steers,” Hauptman says. “In terms of skiing it’s like if you want to snowplow or something. It’s for big, huge movements.”
“For luge every piece of our body matters,” adds Hansen. “If I’m going to steer with my feet, but my shoulders aren’t starting that steer then you end up counter steering the sled.”
When steering in a corner it becomes a full body experience for the top athletes. Down the straightaways, lugers generally don’t want to steer at all. The goal there is to be as still as possible to let the sled ride. When they get to the curves, lugers will steer with their heads, shoulders, and really their whole body as they progress through a larger curve. As Hansen explains, it starts at your head and works its way down to the feet.
“It’s really flowing, when you drive a curve correctly it’s really simple. But it’s never THAT easy so you’re always fighting the whole way down. On a luge sled specifically, like 80% of the curve you kind of give a roll. You don’t roll and steer at the same time, you kind of look down the curve with your chin, which then pushes your shoulder, and then that goes to your feet. So it feels really relaxing and flowing when you’re doing it right. If you don’t do it correctly you’re fighting pressures and you’re struggling to keep your head up and it’s not the vibe you want. When you’re fighting like that you start to notice the speed, and the wall.”
With any sliding sport, the ability to slide the track is only part of the equation. Your equipment has to be right, the sled setup has to be just right, and if it all is perfect you can have a quick time. But if any one part of your sled prep or your run is just a little off, the time can go downhill in a hurry. So what happens when you cross the finish line?
Crossing the Finish Line
The run finishes as an athlete crosses the finish line. In luge, an athlete can crash and still get a finish time as long as they’re touching their sled and do not paddle their sled across the finish. Paddling across the finish line results in a disqualification.
Getting down the track clean is one thing, but getting down the track clean and quick is another. As Hauptman explains, you can make it down clean but not quick.
“A lot of it comes down to equipment. You can have the best run and it can feel amazing and you can come across like you just had the wrong stuff for the conditions. You can be back by a few tenths just because of that. Or maybe you did too many corrections and didn’t let the sled run, so there’s a few things there.”
A run that ends up being slower than you thought can sometimes play games with your mind, and it’s the mental toughness that a slider can have that makes or breaks a season sometimes.
“It really is the hardest part. Because sometimes you have a really clean run and it felt great but then the time is really slow, and that’s just the worst,” Hansen says. “That would bring me to tears, because it’s like I’m doing everything possible and there’s an element that’s out of my control. In luge the coaches were a big part of your setup because they didn’t always educate us on setup. I understand why, they don’t want athletes to bug out and go a little crazy with things, so I get it. But it was hard for me when I’d finish and had a bad time
“If you drove it well and you felt it in your body, it’s kind of like shooting a free throw in basketball and it’s a swish. There’s a difference between that and it hits the rim and the backboard and the rim again. It’s the same result, but it just feels so much better! You pull up and think “I’m the man!” and then you feel great…and then your next three runs are terrible and it grounds you really fast. It’s a really humbling sport but hopefully as you get older you learn to value your worth off of sliding and not the timing. Because the timing will send you deep into a psychosis…you get all of the times, you see everyone else’s session and you have the one person that you usually slide the same times with from the Austrian team and they’re faster and then you’re wondering why are they faster? And you’re comparing yourself and them and it’s a total spiral.”
The Olympic luge program begins on Saturday, February 5 at 6:00 AM Eastern Time.
