Street Luge is an adventurous sport, popularly known as land luge or road luge. It is a thrilling gravity sport that involves the player to ride on a paved road or an artificial course on a street luge board or sled.
The sport is a recreation of skateboarding where the participants ride the sled by being on a supine riding position. They travel at a very high speed of around 70-102 mph or 112-164 km per hour.
Objective
The primary objective of the riders is to ride their sleds on the designated track and reach the end as fast as possible, beating other fellow participants. The riders lay down on their luge board or sled in a supine position, i.e. lying down with their backs in the upward direction with their feet being downwards. The races can be conducted as individuals or a team of two. The rider or team that finishes the race the fastest is declared as the winner.
History of Street Luge
Street luge was originated in Southern California. It was invented when the downhill skateboarders tried to reach downhill by lying down on their skateboards. This form is still popular and is known as "laydown skateboarding".
Luge races were being held as long ago in the 800 AD by the Vikings to compete in the Oslofjord mountains.
In 1975, the United States Skateboard Association hosted the first professional street luge race on a hill known as Signal Hill in California. The winner was decided based on the minimum time to complete the race.
The skateboards used in the first event were pretty basic, and plastic or fibreglass entirely covered the participants while using the complex skate cars. Unfortunately, by 1978; several injuries to both riders and spectators, resulted in a halt of luge races at the Signal Hill.
During the early 1990s, various organisations such as the Underground Racers Association (URA), Federation of International Gravity Racing (FIGR) and Road Racers Association for International Luge (RAIL) organised various underground and professional races in Southern California.
With the advent and popularity of the sports in the 1980s and 1990s, the race organisers started taking the sport seriously. They implemented various equipment and safety measures, along with modified rules and regulations. Meanwhile, in the 1990s the sport spread its wings in Western Austria.
By that time many classic street luge races commonly known as Hot Heels, were organised in Western Austria’s Kaunertal Valley. In the mid of 1990s, a popular organisation RAIL and then the International Gravity Sports Association (IGSA) sanctioned the street luge coverage by ESPN’s X Games.
Later with the mass popularity, the Gravity Games were introduced to the audience by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), sanctioned by the Extreme Downhill International (EDI). Meanwhile, the sport kept on rising in various countries such as Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa, the U.K. and Canada.
Many smaller events were held in these countries where a good amount of lugers began participating. But, by the early 2000s, the sport showed an extreme downfall in terms of popularity.
Due to commercialisation, the X-Games were conducted only in stadiums. The other active variants such as Gravity Games, Hot Heels and Australian Xtreme Games disappeared entirely. With the unavailability of the X Games and the Gravity Games, street luge faced a real set back but still managed to flourish in many countries where competitions were still organised. Today, the sport includes approximately 1200 active street lugers around the globe.
