Tony Benshoof attends the United States Olympic Committee luge press conference at the Whistler Media Centre on Feb. 9 in Vancouver.
Posted: Feb 10, 12:45a ET | Updated: Feb 10, 1:13p ET
Tony Benshoof attends the United States Olympic Committee luge press conference at the Whistler Media Centre on Feb. 9 in Vancouver.
WHISTLER (AFP) - U.S. slider Tony Benshoof has held the Guinness World Record for the fastest luge speed for almost a decade, but he thinks he can go quicker at the Winter Olympics.
Benshoof is America's top hope in a sport not for the faint-hearted, with athletes hurling themselves down icy, twisting, banked tracks in gravity-powered sleds.
He booked the fastest time of 86.6 mph (139 kph) in 2001 and no-one has gone faster since.
"Absolutely," he said when asked if he could go better here.
"I have the Guinness record, but to break it they have to go through this whole process. We go faster than that routinely. It's a technicality, but I'll take it."
Asked whether there was a speed ceiling lugers can reach, he said he was close to it.
"We're really close. The tracks are getting faster and faster," he said.
"It's getting pretty crazy. There's that word 'dangerous', it's like that word 'fear'. It's getting down to that. I mean, a 100 miles an hour is pretty quick."
"I don't know how much faster we can go."
While Benshoof is the current speed king, he is not a favorite to win gold. That honor goes to Italian Armin Zoeggeler , who is going for his third straight Olympic title in Vancouver this month. Russian World Cup challenger Albert Demtschenko and German world champ Felix Loch are expected to run him close.
Benshoof finished fourth at the last Games in Torino and said he was approaching the 2010 event relaxed, treating it as just another race.
"In '06 I had a great race. I really did. There was not a whole lot I could have done differently," he said.
"I'm not going to treat this one differently. You can't pull a rabbit out of the hat. You just have to do what you do best."
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