Luge

Luge is both a small one- or two-person sled and an Olympic sport that uses it. The rider lies supine, face up and feet first, begins seated and pushes off from handles on either side of the start ramp, then steers by flexing the runners with the calf muscles or by pressing the opposite shoulder against the pod. Racing sleds weigh 21 to 25 kilograms for singles and 25 to 30 kilograms for doubles. Luge is not the same as skeleton, a face-down, head-first sport in the bobsleigh family that is run under the same international federation as bobsleigh, whereas luge is organised separately by the International Luge Federation (FIL). It is the fastest of the three sliding sports, with speeds above 140 km/h, and Austrian luger Manuel Pfister reached 154 km/h on the Whistler track before the 2010 Winter Olympics. Lugers race against a timer, and on artificial tracks times are taken to one millisecond. The word luge is first recorded in 1905, from a Savoy and Swiss dialect word for a small coasting sled.