The origins of most of
the winter sports currently
on display in
Vancouver are fairly self-evident:
skis were invented as
a way of travelling on snow,
ditto ice skates. But where
did ʻthe Lugeʼ come from? It
seems a crazy thing for a person
with no protection other
than a helmet to be hurtling
down a track of rock-hard ice
at 150kph.

The dangers inherent in the
sport were starkly highlighted
this year when the 2010 Winter
Olympics at Vancouver began
in tragedy with the death
of the 21 year old Georgian
Luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili.
ʻThe Lugeʼ, along with ʻthe
skeletonʼ and the ʻbobsledʼ
were invented in the healthspa
town of St Moritz, Switzerland,
in the mid-to-late
nineteenth century, through
the endeavours of hotel entrepreneur
Caspar Badrutt.

Badrutt successfully sold
the idea of winter holidaymaking
to the upper classes of
Europe, as well as rooms with
food, drink, and activities.
His more adventurous guests
began adapting delivery boysʼ
sleds for recreation, which led
to collisions with pedestrians
as they sped down the lanes
and alleys of the village.

This had two outcomes:
in the short term the guests
began to devise methods of
steering the sleds, and so invented
ʻthe skeletonʼ (head
first, prone), ʻthe lugeʼ (feet
first, supine), and the twoand
four-man ʻbobsleighsʼ.

In the long term, in the interests
of pedestrian safety,
he built a thin, special track
for his guestsʼ activities– the
worldʼs first ʻhalf-pipeʼ, in
about 1870.

The track is still in use today;
it has been used as a venue
in two Olympiads,
and is one of the few
natural weather tracks
that do not depend on
artificial refrigeration.

Two athletes– Peter
Minsch of Switzerland
and George Robertson
of Australia– tied for
first place in what was
called ʻThe Great International
Sled Raceʼ
of February 12, 1883.
Their time: nine minutes
and 15 seconds,
to slide down a fourkilometre
track joining
the Swiss villages of
Klosters and Davos.

Luge races have
grown considerably
faster since then
with refrigerated luge
tracks and aerodynamic
equipment, so that
speeds now regularly
reach 140 kilometres
an hour or more and G-forces
reach over 5G.

Luge for men, women and
doubles made its Olympic
debut at the 1964 Games in
Innsbruck.