{"id":477899,"date":"2026-02-19T13:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T13:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477899\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T13:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T13:23:12","slug":"olympic-athletes-are-pretty-fast-but-are-they-faster-than-a-cheetah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477899\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic athletes are pretty fast, but are they faster than a cheetah?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIt’s a bird, it’s a plane! Nope \u2014 it’s a luge racer speeding down an ice track at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Luge \u2014 a sport where athletes hurl themselves downhill feet-first on a small sled \u2014 wins the gold medal for the fastest Winter Olympic event. Athletes can reach speeds of up to 96 miles per hour, according to a Get the Facts Data Team analysis of ESPN and Olympics.com data. That’s faster than a cheetah.And, there are no brakes. Instead, an uphill slope at the bottom of the track helps slow athletes. Luge is not the only speedy sport in the Olympics. Downhill alpine skiing would win silver in the speed competition as athletes typically reach speeds of 75 to 95 miles per hour \u2014 also outpacing Earth’s fastest land mammal.The four-man bobsled race takes bronze. And, while it does not reach the podium, skeleton \u2014 luge’s sister sport, where athletes are oriented face-first down the ice track \u2014 is also quite speedy. Skeleton athletes are typically hitting speeds around 80 to 87 miles per hour.As for the only winter sport with “speed” in the name, speedskating athletes go about 35-58 miles per hour in the long track race. While slower than other winter sports, that is still faster than Usain Bolt’s 27 miles per hour record speed.So, how fast exactly are these athletes going? The cheetah \u2014 which can reach top speeds of 70 miles per hour \u2014 trails behind athletes competing in luge, alpine skiing, bobsled and skeleton. It can take on Chloe Kim and other snowboarders in a race.While the cheetah is the fastest land animal, the Mexican free-tailed bat is the fastest animal in the air, excluding diving birds like the peregrine falcon. Bats can reach speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It’s a bird, it’s a plane! Nope \u2014 it’s a luge racer speeding down an ice track at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. <\/p>\n

Luge<\/a> \u2014 a sport where athletes hurl themselves downhill feet-first on a small sled \u2014 wins the gold medal for the fastest Winter Olympic event. <\/p>\n

Athletes can reach speeds of up to 96 miles per hour, according to a Get the Facts Data Team<\/a> analysis of ESPN and Olympics.com data. That’s faster than a cheetah.<\/p>\n

And, there are no brakes. Instead, an uphill slope at the bottom of the track helps slow athletes.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"CORTINA<\/p>\n

\n\t\tRichard Heathcote\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTeam USA\u2019s\u00a0Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa compete in a training run for the men\u2019s doubles luge event at the 2026 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

Luge is not the only speedy sport in the Olympics. <\/p>\n

Downhill alpine skiing would win silver in the speed competition as athletes typically reach speeds of 75 to 95 miles per hour \u2014 also outpacing Earth’s fastest land mammal.<\/p>\n

The four-man bobsled race takes bronze. <\/p>\n

And, while it does not reach the podium, skeleton \u2014 luge’s sister sport, where athletes are oriented face-first down the ice track \u2014 is also quite speedy. Skeleton athletes are typically hitting speeds around 80 to 87 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

As for the only winter sport with “speed” in the name, speedskating<\/a> athletes go about 35-58 miles per hour in the long track race. While slower than other winter sports, that is still faster than Usain Bolt’s 27 miles per hour record speed.<\/p>\n

So, how fast exactly are these athletes going?<\/p>\n

The cheetah \u2014 which can reach top speeds of 70 miles per hour \u2014 trails behind athletes competing in luge, alpine skiing, bobsled and skeleton. It can take on Chloe Kim<\/a> and other snowboarders in a race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a bird, it’s a plane! Nope \u2014 it’s a luge racer speeding down an ice track at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[172396,42263,220947,106553,220949,220943,220953,220950,220942,220944,37914,220940,220946,220938,220952,220939,220941,6753,220951,220948,220954,220955,10119,79,78680,2095,220945,1079,201,58926,211565],"class_list":["post-477899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alpine-skiing","tag-bobsled","tag-brakes-luge","tag-cheetah","tag-cheetah-speed","tag-downhill-alpine-skiing","tag-fast-land","tag-fastest-sport","tag-fastest-winter-sport","tag-four-man-bobsled","tag-hour","tag-ice-track","tag-long-track-speedskating","tag-luge","tag-luge-racer","tag-luge-speed","tag-mens-doubles-luge","tag-mile","tag-olympic-athlete","tag-olympic-speeds","tag-only-speedy-sport","tag-other-snowboarder","tag-race","tag-science","tag-skeleton","tag-speed","tag-speedskating","tag-sport","tag-wildlife","tag-winter-olympics","tag-winter-olympics-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}