Luge at the Winter Olympics

Luge is a winter sport featured at the Winter Olympic Games where a competitor or two-person team rides a flat sled while lying supine (face up) and feet first. The sport is usually contested on a specially designed ice track that allows gravity to increase the sled's speed. The winner normally completes the route with the fastest overall time. It was first contested at the 1964 Winter Olympics, with both men's and women's events and a doubles event. From 1964 to 2010, doubles was technically considered a mixed event, but it was almost always competed by a team of two men. Starting in 2014, the doubles event will become a men's only event due to the introduction of the team relay. German lugers (competing under the IOC country codes of EUA, GDR, FRG and GER at different times since 1964) have dominated the competition, winning 75 medals in 43 events. As the Italian luge team is completely recruited from South Tyrol, nearly all medal winners, except those from Soviet Union, Russia, United States and Latvia, are ethnic Germans.