There are a lot of Olympic events that seem silly or unnecessary, but perhaps none so much as the luge.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t really fully understand the sport, but it’s basically just sledding, right? I mean, what is the skill set necessary for being a good luger? I understand that there’s steering involved; is that all?

I know that the U.S. Luge team has been doing a ton of outreach lately to recruit more lugers, including an event on Rockefeller Plaza today allowing kids to try out a luge on a tiny little luge track. It looked like this:

Whoopee! Now if that thrilling four-foot drop isn’t going to get them interested, I don’t know what will. Maybe all those commercials that the U.S. Luge team airs showing kids sledding, and basically asking, “Hey, you ever think about sledding… IN THE OLYMPICS?”

And what’s most baffling about the luge is the two-man luge. I just can’t understand what, at all, the second guy laying on top of the first guy can add to luging other than — depending on the lugers’ orientations — to make things way more awkward or way more interesting.

How do you even meet your luge partner? Do you practice by spooning? Is there a mixer? I mean, that’s someone you better have damn good chemistry with, because he’s going to be spending a lot of time speeding down an icy path while laying on top of you wearing a skin-tight unitard.