At the 2010 Vancouver Games, each nation belonging to the International Luge Federation (FIL) may enter a maximum of three men, three women, and two doubles teams. There will be no more than 110 luge athletes at the Games (80 men, 30 women). There is no fixed cap on the number of participants in each event, but the target is to have 40 in men's singles, 30 in women's singles and 20 sleds in doubles.

Luge consists of three events: men's singles, women's singles, and doubles. The athlete(s) who navigates the course in the fastest total time after four singles runs or two doubles runs is the winner.

In all cases, time is measured to the thousandth of a second, making luge and short track speed skating the most precisely timed events of the Winter Games. Luge timing was previously calculated to the hundredth of a second until two doubles teams tied for gold at the 1972 Sapporo Games. Since the change, the closest Olympic race in history was the 1998 women's event which came down to .002 seconds over four runs. The closest men's race was the 1994 duel between Germany's Georg Hackl and Austria's Markus Prock in which the winning margin was .013 seconds. Ties to the thousandth of a second - though extremely rare - are permitted.