| Men's singles at the XIII Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
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| Venue | Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run | ||||||||||||
| Dates | 13–16 February | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 30 from 13 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 2:54.796 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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| Luge at the 1980 Winter Olympics | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Singles | men | women |
| Doubles | men | |
The men's singles luge competition at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was held from 13 to 16 February, at Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run. [1] [2]
| Rank [1] | Athlete | Country | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Bernhard Glass |  East Germany | 43.609 | 43.780 | 43.925 | 43.482 | 2:54.796 |
 | Paul Hildgartner |  Italy | 43.652 | 44.000 | 43.708 | 44.012 | 2:55.372 |
 | Anton Winkler |  West Germany | 43.885 | 44.045 | 44.310 | 44.305 | 2:56.545 |
| 4 | Dettlef Günther | East Germany | 43.199 | 43.555 | 46.879 | 43.530 | 2:57.163 |
| 5 | Gerhard Sandbichler |  Austria | 44.128 | 44.711 | 44.305 | 44.307 | 2:57.451 |
| 6 | Franz Wilhelmer | Austria | 44.162 | 44.783 | 44.159 | 44.379 | 2:57.483 |
| 7 | Gerhard Böhmer | West Germany | 44.010 | 44.741 | 44.434 | 44.584 | 2:57.769 |
| 8 | Anton Wembacher | West Germany | 44.308 | 44.549 | 44.835 | 44.320 | 2:58.012 |
| 9 | Albert Graf | Austria | 44.253 | 44.524 | 44.815 | 44.431 | 2:58.023 |
| 10 | Jindřich Zeman |  Czechoslovakia | 44.901 | 45.438 | 45.571 | 45.025 | 3:00.935 |
| 11 | Bruce Smith |  Canada | 45.442 | 45.305 | 45.479 | 44.848 | 3:01.074 |
| 12 | Jeff Tucker |  United States | 45.158 | 45.311 | 45.427 | 45.400 | 3:01.296 |
| 13 | Rainer Gassner |  Liechtenstein | 45.283 | 45.956 | 45.907 | 44.927 | 3:02.073 |
| 14 | Neil Townshend |  Great Britain | 46.726 | 45.037 | 45.037 | 45.278 | 3:02.078 |
| 15 | John Fee | United States | 45.328 | 45.407 | 46.032 | 45.345 | 3:02.112 |
| 16 | Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson | Great Britain | 45.191 | 46.947 | 45.060 | 45.066 | 3:02.264 |
| 17 | Mark Jensen | Canada | 45.150 | 46.218 | 45.363 | 46.079 | 3:02.810 |
| 18 | Stefan Kjernholm |  Sweden | 44.565 | 44.905 | 44.900 | 48.538 | 3:02.908 |
| 19 | Koji Kuriyama |  Japan | 45.820 | 45.872 | 45.852 | 45.538 | 3:03.082 |
| 20 | Richard Stithem | United States | 45.418 | 45.938 | 46.245 | 45.491 | 3:03.092 |
| 21 | Ernst Haspinger | Italy | 43.435 | 43.833 | 43.592 | 52.556 | 3:03.416 |
| 22 | Derek Prentice | Great Britain | 45.502 | 45.880 | 46.425 | 46.715 | 3:04.522 |
| 23 | Takashi Takagi | Japan | 45.294 | 51.003 | 45.575 | 47.692 | 3:09.564 |
| - | Wolfgang Schädler | Liechtenstein | 45.751 | 48.568 | DNS | - | - |
| - | Dainis Bremze |  Soviet Union | 43.559 | 1:21.445 | DNS | - | - |
| - | Hans Rinn | East Germany | 43.802 | 1:24.301 | DNS | - | - |
| - | Vladimír Resl | Czechoslovakia | 44.255 | DNF | - | - | - |
| - | Markus Kägi |  Switzerland | 54.224 | DNS | - | - | - |
| - | Karl Brunner | Italy | DNF | - | - | - | - |
| - | Ueli Schenkel | Switzerland | DNF | - | - | - | - |
A luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine and feet-first. A luger steers by using the calf muscles to flex the sled's runners or by exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Racing sleds weigh 21–25 kg (46–55 lb) for singles and 25–30 kg (55–66 lb) for doubles. Luge is also the name of an Olympic sport.
Georg Hackl is a German former luger who was three time Olympic and World Champion. He is known affectionately as Hackl-Schorsch or as the Speeding Weißwurst a reference to what he looks like in his white bodysuit coming down the luge at fast speeds.
The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,303.
Luge at the 1980 Winter Olympics consisted of three events at Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run. The competition took place between 13 and 16 February 1980.
Dettlef Günther is an East German former luger who competed from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. He won the gold medal in the men's singles event at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, Günther was favored to repeat after leading the first two runs, but crashed at the end of the third run causing him to lose three seconds and settling for fourth in the standings.
Vera Zozulya is a Soviet luger who competed during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Competing in two Winter Olympics, she won the gold medal in the women's singles event at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
Susi-Lisa Erdmann is an East German-German luger and bobsledder who competed from 1977 to 1998 in luge, then since 1999 in bobsleigh. Competing in five Winter Olympics, she won two medals in the women's singles luge event with a silver in 1994 and a bronze in 1992, and a bronze at the inaugural two-women bobsleigh event in 2002. She is one of only two people to ever win a medal in both bobsleigh and luge at the Winter Olympics; Italy's Gerda Weissensteiner is the other.
Karl Brunner was an Italian luger who competed from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. He won the silver medal in the men's doubles event at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
Angelika Schafferer is an Austrian luger who competed during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She won the bronze medal in the women's singles event at the 1978 FIL World Luge Championships in Imst, Austria.
Erin Mullady Hamlin is a four-time Olympian and the first female American luger to medal at any Winter Olympics, as well as the first American of either gender to medal in luge singles competition and the first non-European woman to take an Olympic medal in luge. She took the singles bronze medal in Sochi's 2014 Winter Olympics, something the Associated Press called "a feat that will surely go down as perhaps the greatest moment in USA Luge history".
The Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run is a venue for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton in the United States, located at the Lake Placid Olympic Sports Complex in Lake Placid, New York. This venue was used for the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and for the only winter Goodwill Games in 2000. The third and most recent version of the track was completed in 2000 with the track hosting both the first FIBT World Championships and FIL World Luge Championships done outside of Europe, doing so in 1949 and 1983. In 2010 the bobsled track was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Canada Olympic Park bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track is a bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track located in Calgary, Alberta. Part of Canada Olympic Park, it hosted the bobsleigh and luge competitions at the 1988 Winter Olympics. This track is one of only two of its type in the world to be featured in a non-documentary film when it was part of the 1993 American film Cool Runnings which loosely followed the Jamaican Bobsled Team during their competition in bobsleigh at the 1988 Games.
Gerhard Sandbichler is an Austrian luger who competed from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. He is best known for his third place overall Luge World Cup finish in men's singles in 1984-5.
Wolfgang Kindl is an Austrian world champion luger who has competed since 2007.
Christopher Mazdzer is an American luger. He competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, finishing 13th on both occasions. At the 2018 Winter Olympics Mazdzer won the silver medal in the Men's Single Luge, becoming the first U.S. men's singles luge medalist and the first and currently only non-European to win a medal in that event.
For the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, United States, a total of seven sports venues were used. All five of the venues used for the 1932 Winter Olympics were also used at the 1980 Winter Games with adjustments. These adjustments included electronic scoreboards, increased refrigeration, and the addition of a separate luge track. This was the last Winter Olympics where there were separate bobsleigh and luge tracks. The closest finish in Olympic history in cross-country skiing led skiing officials to time future events in hundredths of a second rather than tenths of a second. This would also apply to biathlon events. Eric Heiden won five gold medals at the speed skating oval while the "Miracle on Ice" took place between Americans and Soviets at the Olympic Center. In the late 1990s, the luge track was demolished and a new combination track was constructed in time for the only Winter Goodwill Games held. The sliding venue was named to the American National Register of Historical Places in February 2010.
The Doubles luge competition at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was held on 19 February, at Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run. The doubles team of Hans Rinn and Norbert Hahn became the first repeat winners of an Olympic luge event.
The Women's singles luge competition at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was held from 13 to 16 February, at Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run.
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