History of bob skeleton
The sport can be traced back to the late 1800's when, in Switzerland, English soldiers built a toboggan track to slide down near to St Moritz. The sport is thought of as a spin off of Cresta sliding and at the Grand National Cresta championships in 1887 the head first position was first adopted. The sport made it's first appearance in the Olympics of 1928, held in St Moritz. It was also in the 1948 Olympics and then added to the Olympic programme in 2002, for Salt Lake City.
Link to Cresta sliding
Link to Cresta crashes
The sport earned it's name when an Englishman called L. P Child changed the sled. The bare bones sled resembled a skeleton and this remains the sports modern day name. In 1923 the Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing was formed and the sport began to spread across the world.
The sport
The aim of the game is to get yourself to the bottom of the ice track as fast as possible. Simple right? Not so much. You need to steer a track full of twists and turns on a one mad sled in order to get to the bottom safely. Tracks are 1.2-1.8 km long, sliders reach speeds of 140 kph and hit 5g forces at points. There is a mixture of long, high pressure corners and shorter, low pressure corners to negotiate. Courses are mainly downhill with an average gradient of 8.5-10% and a maximum gradient of between 15 and 20%. The vertical drop between start to end is usually between 110 and 130m. And I should mention that you can't really see when you are sliding, so apart from a small amount of peripheral vision you rely on memory, feel and sound.
Components of sliding
The start.
From a standing start the slider must push the sled (20-30m) to accelerate it firstly on the flat then downhill before loading (jumping on). It usually takes elite sliders 5s to cover the first 50m and they can reach speeds of 40 kph even at this point.
Driving.
When on the sled your head and lower legs hang off each end centimetres off the ice. Like I said before you have very little vision and lifting you head can seriously affect the stability of the sled so it isn't advised for the most part. There is no steering wheel. In bob skeleton you drive using your
1. Head
2. Shoulder
3. Knee
4. Shoulder and knee
5. Feet
It's all about changing the pressure or weight through the runners and in particular the knife (the grippy part of the runner). Depending on where you apply pressure and how the sled changes direction. The movements are all quite subtle too. If you watch the pros you can barely see their steers (except for feet). We on the other hand are telegraphing (showing our steers) quite a lot.
So how do you know when to steer? Well for us we started with 4 steers that our coach needed us to do to get us safely to the bottom. So you make a plan, or a script as I like to think of it. First day my plan looked like this...
Corner 6. Left shoulder
Corner 10. Right shoulder
Corner 12 . Left shoulder
Corner 13. Right shoulder
I now have 16 steers as opposed to 4. This is to help optimise the entry and exits from corners so that you get a good (fast) line down the track as hits and skids bleed the speed from the sled. To help us remember what to do a lot of visualisation is required. You can do this anywhere and in any position really but for me it helps to be on my sled and I can replicate the movements and build my muscle memory.
Yesterday doing do someone visualisation with my script.
Where does it all lead? (One day, eventually maybe?)
Competition.
Apart from the Olympics and the World Championships there are four international circuits in which skeleton athletes can compete; Europa cup, Inter-Continental cup, North American cup and the highest of them all the World Cup. In a couple of years if I make it on to the Talent programme I could be competing in the Europa cup which is the first one. Each series has 8 races where you get two runs. The series winner is the one with the most points.
Great Britain, despite not having a home track are a pretty successful skeleton nation. GB have medaled at the last four Olympics and have athletes in all of the international series. So far this season several of the athletes in the EC and ICC have achieved podium finishes. So we are in good company.
Lizzie Yarnold winning Olympic gold in Sochi.
The lifestyle.
This isn't a 'normal' sport. On top of the physical demands it requires a knowledge of sled mechanics, physics, sliding science, mental strength and ability to visualise and recall. It also demands that you are away from home 6 months a year in cold weather environments, away from family and friends. A typical day may involve: sled work, loading the van, a track walk, sliding session, gym, video analysis, ice bath etc. etc. it is a lot of work for 3 minutes of sliding. But it just shows the intricacies of the sport - so next time you describe it as sliding down a hill on a tea tray think again.
So there you are; bobskeleton in a nutshell. We only have 6 slides left before we leave but we are aiming to get to the top by Wednesday. Fingers crossed it goes well. I'm going to learn my script now.
Not that you can tell but that's me yesterday coming out of 10.
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