It's A Slippery Slope
I WILL.
That's a really strong statement both for life and sports if you'll take it seriously. I said it a lot to myself this past week in combine training. I WILL finish these reps. I WILL give all I've got. I WILL complete everything I start. I WILL perform with excellence. I WILL do this without complaining. I WILL learn and get better. I WILL push myself to new limits. I WILL be the best I can possibly be. I WILL demand perfection. I WILL.
I'm not saying I looked anything like these amazing athletes, but I sure worked hard at Zoom this past week. My sprint workout was really good. I'm loving those flat treadmill sprints at the end! I just feel so fast. Then I did a lunge matrix, following by this crazy circuit. Overhead med ball slams, weight sled push, ropes, box jumps and quick steps. I didn't have quite as weight on my sled as Michael did in the video, but it was plenty. Pushing a heavily weighted sled on fake grass is not easy, let me assure you. Heart rate spike! And my rope exercises were completely pitiful compared to this guys in the video. I have never seen anyone get the ropes moving like that. Let me also assure you that those ropes are stinkin heavy! My puny shoulders are nothing compared to his. That definitely gets your heart rate even higher. After your heart is pounding and your breathing really hard, please get down into the squat position. Hold it for 2 seconds then jump straight up 36" and land in a squat position on a box and hold it for 2 seconds. Not easy! After you've done that, do a bunch of quick step toe taps onto a smaller box. And we can't just do it 3 times (even though that's what the original plan was), because then we'd just be uneven. Have to do 4 to make it even. John asked if I wanted to do another round while I was finishing the 4th one. NO! I was thinking, "If you give a mouse a cookie...If I do 5, then he'll probably make me do another round to make it even. No thank you!"
Now on to something Olympic... We're up to Day 5 in my and Katy's Olympic tribute. If you'll remember we had short track speed skating, moguls (freestyle skiing), ice skating, and last week was speed skating.
Day 5: I walk in the door from a long day of classes and practice, and as soon as I make it into the apartment Katy makes me stand there and close my eyes. She has obviously been preparing for this picture all day. I stand there with my eyes closed hearing the coat closet and a cupboard door opening and closing along with a few grunts. Then I get the okay to look and burst out laughing! This picture gets me every time I even think about it, let alone see it. I know I say this every week, but this is one of my favorites. It's just so funny!
I love it! So creative. In case you're wondering, her "sled" is one of our collapsible rocking chairs and her face shield is our popcorn bowl. I love how big your eyes are in the picture Katy! It's like you're actually careening out of control. Thanks for being my friend and making me laugh!
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| Paddling At the Start |
If you still don't know what the sport of the week is, then allow me to enlighten you.
LUGE
I remember when this commercial was on in the late 90's, and it still makes me laugh. Classic. Every once and a while, I would be sitting in our green recliner and re-enact this commercial. It's just too fun to pass up. You should try sometime, especially if I'm there to laugh.
I would say the majority of people get a little nervous moving at 90 miles per hour protected by steel, air bags, brakes, and a car body. And then there are those of us who ask, "Can we remove all protective mechanisms, get close enough to kiss the pavement and lie down so we can't see real well?" Replace pavement with ice, and you've got yourself the makings of a luge team.
Luge is one of the most dangerous sports in the Olympic games, and the athletes who race down an icy, high-banked track at up to 90 mph (140 km/h) are a special breed. Let's learn how they got their start.
History
The first official luge competition occurred on Februaury 12, 1883, later known as “The Great International Sled Race”. Competitors from Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland started on a 4-km (just under 2.5 miles) road between Davos and Klosters. Australian student George Robertson and Swiss mailman Peter Minsch tied for the win with a time of 9 minutes, 15 seconds. Their average speed: 26 kph (just over 16 mph).
Fast forward to 1957, when the sport of luge split from bobsleigh to form its own international federation. Luge for men, women and doubles made its Olympic debut at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck. I found it interesting that the Innsbruck Games were threatened by a lack of snow. Imagine a lack of snow in the Swiss Alps. It just doesn't seem possible. The Austrian army rushed to the rescue, carving out 20,000 blocks of ice from the mountain side and transporting them down to the luge and bobsleigh tracks. For the first time, athletes raced on a track that used artificial ice. This resulted in the sport losing much of its danger. The army also carried 40,000 cubic meters of snow to the Alpine skiing slopes. I'm not the best at judging distances or measurements, but that's a lot of snow! That's 1,412,587 cubic feet or 9,080,830 gallons of snow. I wonder how many truck loads of snow that was? Tons!
| This sweet picture from the 1964 Games shows how little snow was on the ground |
How It Works
In luge (French for “sled”), racers begin by sitting on open fiberglass sleds. Pulling on fixed handles in the ice, they burst out of the start. After this explosive start, they use spiked gloves on the ice surface for extra acceleration before lying down on their backs in the prone position, feet stretched out in front of them, heads back to be as aerodynamic as possible. |
| Doubles Luge |
Luge racers steer using their legs and shoulders, and brake by sitting up, putting their feet down and pulling up on the sled runners. If a slider crosses the finish line without his sled, the run is thrown out, which means automatic disqualification since all of the run times count toward the final score. However, the slider can cross the finish line carrying his sled, and the run counts. That has to be one painful ride, but at least you get a score along with the pain.
Like I said above, three events are on the Olympic program: women's single luge, men's single luge, and double luge, which has been a mixed event since the 1992 Games in Albertville, although no mixed team has ever competed at the Games. Since a higher weight is advantageous in luge due to physics, doubles teams are typically all male. Doubles just doesn't look very comfortable. I'd be afraid of flying off if I was the front/top person. There is definitely a very large trust factor involved. And FYI: A luge athlete is called a slider; rarely are they ever called a luger. Don't want you walking around committing that faux paus. Here is a video with a little deeper look into doubles. Mark and Brian finished 13th, at 1.3 seconds out of first.
The singles events consist of four heats over two days. The individual with the lowest combined time over the four runs wins. Men and women compete on the same track, but the women and doubles begin further down the course. The four-run format is unique to the Olympic Winter Games and designed to reward consistency, endurance and ability to withstand pressure - particularly on the second day. The doubles event consists of two runs over one day, with the fastest total time determining the winner. All events in luge are timed to the thousandth of a second -- for comparison, the blink of an eye takes 12 thousandths of a second.
At the 1998 Nagano Games, the time difference between the women's gold and silver was two-thousandths of a second, the smallest margin in luge history. This minuscule difference between first and second place drew a great deal of controversy, and engineers were called in to calculate the system's margin of error. They found it to be approximately two-thousandths of a second. This triggered a high-tech addition to the timing setup. Since the 1998 Games, luge timing systems have been calibrated before each race using a GPS satellite with an atomic clock that's accurate to the 10-10 seconds. The calibration process is basically about synchronizing the timers on the luge course with the atomic clock on the satellite. With a modified GPS receiver built into the timing system, the satellite can trigger the start timer and then trigger the stop timer after a certain interval. If the time noted by the satellite and the time noted by the ground system matches to at least the second thousandth of a second, the timing system is ready for a race. Wow! Very high tech.
Lighter weight competitors may use a regulated amount of ballast to raise the total weight. The luge course is between 1,000 and 1,500 meters long (between 0.62 and 0.93 miles). In modern luge, with refrigerated tracks and aerodynamic equipment, lugers can reach top speeds of 140 km/h (87+ mph) and G-forces reach over 5G. This intense gravitational force is what holds the sled and athlete on the wall of a banked curve. These athletes have to train to withstand these intense G-forces and still be able to control their bodies. Some sliders "lose their head." This is when a competitor’s head is pulled back onto the ice by high G-forces. Yikes! That sounds painful!
Reaching speeds up to 90 mph on the track, just staying on the sled would be a feat for a highly trained athlete. But sliders don't just have to stay on the sled -- they also need to maintain a strictly aerodynamic form, watch where they're going and try to keep the sled in the "sweet spot" that will carry them smoothly between turns, all while facing up to 5 G's on particularly strenuous courses. According to Canadian slider Jeff Christie in a CBC interview, the consequences of giving in to the G-forces can be pretty painful:
- "When you go into a corner pulling five g-forces with your head hanging off the end of the sled, suddenly your head is five times your body weight. You've got to keep it up so you can see where you're going because, trust me, the worst feeling in the world is having your head dragging on the ice at 120 kilometres per hour."
Equipment
First, we'll start with their sweet ride, the sled.
- Kufen, the German word for runner, is usually made of fiberglass or wood. The slider steers by applying pressure with his/her foot onto the runners. The curved section (the bow) of each runner is flexible. Using their legs, sliders apply pressure to one or the other runner bow in order to steer through the course (they can also steer by making small movements with their shoulders to shift their weight).
- The sled rides along the track on two steel runners called steels. They are the only part of the sled that touches the ice's surface and are attached to the kufens. These are typically very sharp.
- The bridge is the part of a sled that connects the two runners and from which the aerodynamic racing shell is suspended. Made of steel, there are two bridges on each sled - one in front and one in back.
- The aerodynamic shell which serves as the seat for the athlete is called the pod. Once they are off the starting blocks, the athlete lays down in a aerodynamic position for more speed.
- Obviously they have to hold on to the sled to keep from flying off. The place where each hand holds a handle on the side of the sled is called the grip.
Now, we'll move on to what they wear. For the level of danger sliders face on each run, the amount of protective gear they wear is shockingly sparse. Every piece of equipment in luge is designed for utmost aerodynamics, minimal friction and top speed.
- Sliders wear helmets that have a clear or tinted visor which extends under the chin to reduce resistance. I'm sure they probably take comfort that their faces are at least a little protected should they crash.
- Sliders wear specially designed race suits to reduce wind resistance. Let's hope they don't consult those Canadian speed skater speed suit designers! Check out last weeks post if you don't remember the horrendous outfits those Canadian skaters had to wear.
- Sliders must wear special shoes with zippers, so that the foot straightens out when the zipper is closed (as opposed to flexed). There are also regulations for the insole and heel of the shoe. During a race, something like a snag in a racing bootie can affect the slider's aerodynamics enough to mean the difference between a win and a loss. Sliders typically race in brand-new gear to reduce the chance of an unnoticed imperfection.
- Luge gloves are spiked at the fingertips to assist with the start and paddling motion as the sliders accelerate onto the track. They paddle through the first 10 feet or so of the track, which helps to gain some speed before lying down on the sled.
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| Lucy Hill naturbahn in Negaunee, Michigan |
In artificial-track luge (kunstbahn), the track is steeper and has high-banked turns, with an average slope of 8 to 11 percent (about 5 to 6 degrees). Speeds on an artificial track can reach 90 mph (140 kph) -- American slider Tony Benshoof holds the Guinness record for fastest luge speed at 86.6 mph.
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| Kunstbahn luge track in Turin, Italy |
An Olympic track is artificially refrigerated. The bobsled/luge course used in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games is a reinforced concrete track with evaporators buried in the concrete. The evaporators cool the track to 12 degrees F. The track is then sprayed with water to create the approximate 2-inch surface of ice.
A typical luge course is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) long and drops about 300 to 400 feet (90-120 m) in the course of a one-minute run. The configuration includes straightaways, left and right turns, downhills (and sometimes a short uphill) and at least one S-type curve combination like the "labyrinth."
The 2002 Olympic luge track in Utah is 4,318 feet (1,316 meters) long and has 15 curves. The vertical drop is approximately 400 feet (120 m). I stood right by this track, and I'm going to slide on it in a few weeks! So cool! When we were there this summer and they were doing dry runs in a sled with wheels on the track, we could see them on the curve in the very bottom, right corner. The push track is right down below this track.
Athletes have to study the track and prepare for racing down it at warp speeds. This is definitely not a sport where you just come in and wing it. The competitors call it a "mind run." They visualize the track, typically right before taking a run. There a few terms racers use to describe sections of the track that are especially difficult or tricky to maneuver.
Kreisel: German word for circle; a curve that forms a circle by the track crossing over itself.
Labyrinth: A stretch of sliding track made up entirely of a series of left and right curves with no straight section in between. It usually consists of three or four curves. The labyrinth at The Whistler Sliding Centre is at curves 12, 13 and 14.
Omega Curve: From above, the curve resembles the Greek letter Omega, Ω. It is the combination of three curves.
Since sliders have the potential of going out of control, track designers have to be careful. Everyone wants to go faster, but safety becomes a large issue. Each track has a lip around the top the turns. This is a protective barrier at the top of the sliding track that prevents the sled from going off course. Sliders may have to crank the sled over to stay on the track. In other words, they may have to use particularly hard pressure to steer a sled and make it through a turn.
Training
With a training schedule that includes six days per week and four hours per day, and an average luge run lasting only 50 seconds, luge athletes are able to get a great deal of practice runs in. Luge sliders are also in the weight room several times a week, and can often be found running sprints. The start is the most important part of the race. It's the time when the slider is most in control, so his or her training can have the greatest affect on the outcome. Luge athletes build tremendous upper body strength for the start, when they'll propel themselves, their sled and any extra weights onto the course. Hand strength is also required for the start, when the slider paddles as quickly as possible for the first several feet of the course. Since a slider's body faces up to 5 G's during a run, he must be in overall excellent physical and mental condition to manage the 50-second attack on his body and his focus. Off-season training consists of aerobic exercise such as swimming and speed skating. Luge sliders can also dryland train in a luge sled outfitted with wheels in order to stay sharp with their paddling technique and speed work. In the weight room, luge athletes perform high repetition exercises to raise their heart rate and work their sprinting muscles.
Luge training also involves sessions in wind tunnels, during which athletes figure out the form that achieves minimum aerodynamic drag. Monitors above the slider's head and at his feet display a number that represents the amount of drag he's experiencing. During the session, with wind blowing over and against him at 90 mph, the athlete makes minute adjustments to his position to lower the drag number.
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| A member of the USA Luge team works on his form in the Allied Aerospace Low Speed Wind Tunnel. |
Luge athletes tend to come from backgrounds such as skateboarding, snowboard and gymnastics — sports that are “reactive” as every race has a different sensation and rhythm requiring sliders to be reactive and flexible to change. Luge takes a strong mental effort to maintain a clean and efficient line down the track while battling G-forces.
Olympic Rules
The basic rules of Olympic luge are pretty straightforward:
- Since weight is an advantage, male athletes must weigh at least 198 lbs (90 kg), and women must weigh at least 165 lbs (75 kg). This helps keep the playing field relatively even. Sliders weighing less than the minimum weight can attach extra weights to themselves to make up for the deficit.
- Singles sleds must weigh no more than 50.6 pounds (23 kg); doubles sleds cannot exceed 59.5 pounds (27 kg). Racing suits must weigh no more than 8.8 pounds (4 kg).
- Sleds cannot have any sort of mechanical brakes.
- Steels (the sled's blades -- the only part that touches the ice) cannot be heated. This would melt the ice during the run, decreasing friction between the steels and the ice to provide an unfair speed advantage. In 1968, the women's Olympic luge team from Germany was disqualified for heating the steels on their sleds.
That's it for this week. I'm really enjoying writing these blogs and learning tons about all these winter sports. I hope you are too. I'm really looking forward to next week. Yet another great picture! Get excited!