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."
