Typically, the 2-man luge is slower because they start further down on the track, but it is much harder to steer because the man on top is the only one that can see, but the man on the bottom is the one that is most able to contribute to the steering. Steering is done by a combination of pushing on the runners with your legs and flexing the sled with your shoulders. The runners of a luge sled are bowed up at the front and contact the riders legs. Laying feet first, it is much harder to see where you are going, and there is less body contact due to the lack of a saddle. A luge rider lays on top of the sled, and there is no saddle holding them to the sled. When they nudge their head a little, their body responds, and the sled responds as well. Because of the saddle, they have a lot of body contact with the sled, and have a lot of control with small movements. In skeleton, the rider has a very good view of what is going on. The steering is very different between the two sleds as well. The feet-first position is more aerodynamic than head-first, because the relatively flat front of the skeleton helmet introduces drag. This contributes to luge being faster than skeleton.Īnother reason luge is faster than skeleton is aerodynamics. A skeleton sled rides on top of tubular runners, and on the body side of the sled, there is a saddle to hold the rider in place.Ī luge sled rides on top of steel blades that are much sharper than the tube blades of a skeleton sled. However, despite the fact that skeleton is head first, luge is the more dangerous of the two, and there are several differences between the two sports.įirst is the sleds themselves. Both sports involve people racing down the ice track on tiny sleds, the only obvious difference between them being that luge riders race on their backs, feet first, and skeleton riders race on their bellies, head first. At first glance, skeleton and luge look very similar.

Luge vs skeleton vs bobsled