Winter Olympics 2022: What is the luge event, where the name comes from and fastest speeds

The Winter Olympics 2022 are being held in Beijing, China this year (2022) from 4 February to 20 February.

The 2022 games motto is "together for a shared future" and the events are taking place in the Beijing National Stadium.

The Winter Olympics are held once every four years with countries around the world competing with their national teams. These Olympics are specifically for multi-sports that are practised on snow and ice.

The first Winter Olympics took place in 1924, hosted in Chamonix, France. The original five Winter Olympic sports were the bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, and skating.

You can catch all the live daily sporting events action on BBC One from 9.15am to 1pm every weekday.

A luge is a sport where a small one or two-person flat sled is ridden in a supine position, meaning face up, feet-first and used in a competition.

The sport is taken on an ice track that is specifically designed to allow gravity to increase the sled's speed.

A person who participates in a luge is called a Luger. A Luger steers their sled by using the calf muscles to flex the sled's runners or by exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat.

Sleds used for racing weigh between 21 to 25kg for a single Luger and between 25 and 30kg for double runners.

The sport has its name derived from the French word for sled.

Lugeing is also called luge tobogganing, which is a form of small-sled racing. It is distinctive from bob sledding and skeleton sledding because you ride the sled in a supine position when lugeing as opposed to being face down in a skeleton sled and sat up right in a bob sled.

The luge became a part of the Winter Olympic program from 1964, and will continue to 2026. It was first played in the 1870s and