While it may not look it to the naked eye, luge is one of the most complex sports at the Winter Olympics. Athletes race feet-first down an icy track without mechanical breaks, using only slight movements of their legs and torso to steer, all while sliding down a mountain at speeds approaching 90 mph. The winner is the athlete or team that completes all of the prescribed runs in the fastest total time.

Five luge events are scheduled for the Milan Cortina Winter Games: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and team relay. Singles events take place over two days, two runs per day, for a total of four runs. Doubles events take place over one day for a total of two runs. The team relay comprises just one heat per nation.

The luge competition begins with the first runs of the men's singles event on Saturday, Feb. 7 and wraps up with the team relay on Thursday, Feb. 12. Stay tuned on the NBC Olympics schedule page for updates.

Bobsled, skeleton and luge will take place at the Cortina Sliding Center in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. The new track, to be built specifically for the 2026 Winter Games, will hug the same mountain slope upon which the sliding sports took place during the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina. 

The slope is named after Italian bobsled legend, Eugenio Monti. Decades before Shaun White launched off Olympic halfpipes as the "The Flying Tomato," Monti earn two Olympic gold medals as Il Rosso Volante, or, "The Flying Redhead."