Bobsleigh History

History

The three Olympic sliding sports are Bobsleigh, Skeleton and Luge.  All three grew out of the practice of using a sled or toboggan - a light, narrow wooden platform on runners - to slide on snow or ice.  Using a sled to travel and for recreational fun in winter dates back some 700 years.

The idea of racing sleds down a steep and twisting track dates back around 150 years to the mid-19th century when British tourists began tobogganing on the snowbound roads of the Alps.

The Four-man Bobsleigh was on the programme of the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924 in Chamonix, France while the Two-man Bobsleigh event joined the Olympic Games program in 1932.

Women did not begin competing in the Bobsleigh events until as recently as 2002 at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.


Technical

Today’s bobsleigh is built to be fast and aerodynamic with a rounded fibreglass nose and four highly polished steel runners.  To start the bobsleigh racers push off as fast as they can for approximately 50 metres before they jump into the bobsleigh for a seated descent down the track.

The driver steers down the track and at the end of the run the brakeman stops the sled.

At the Winter Olympics, there are just three Olympic Bobsleigh events.

The men compete in both Two-and Four-man Bobsleigh while the women only compete in a Two-person Bobsleigh event.

In all Olympic Games events, four heats are held over two days with medals being awarded to the team with the lowest combined time which is measured to 0.01 of a second.


Major Players

Germany are the world’s dominant force in Bobsleigh and claimed all three of the three available gold medals at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics. Canada, Russia and the USA are also all constant medal contenders in the sport.

The British women’s pairing of Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke are potential world beaters and won the Women's World Bobsleigh Championships at Lake Placid in the USA in 2009.


Bluffers’ Guide

The brakeman is the last teammate to enter the bobsled at the start of the race.  It is he/she who is responsible for pulling the brake to stop the sled at the end of the run.


Useless Information

Cool Runnings - a popular comedy film released in 1993 - is loosely based on the true story of the Jamaica national bobsled team’s debut at the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics.  It stars Leon Robinson, Doug E. Doug, Malik Yoba, Rawle D. Lewis and John Candy.