 Bobsleigh, bobsled or bobsledge is a winter sport invented by Englishmen in the late 1860s in which teams make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled. The various types of sleds came several years before the first tracks were built in St Moritz, where the original bobsleds were adapted upsized Luge/Skeleton sleds designed by the adventurously wealthy to carry passengers. All three types were adapted from boys delivery sleds and toboggans.
Competition naturally followed, and to protect the working class and rich visitors in the streets and byways of St Moritz, hotel owner Caspar Badrutt, owner of the historic Krup Hotel and the later Palace Hotel built the first familiarly configured 'half-pipe' track circa 1870. It has hosted the sports during two Olympics and is still in use today The first races were for 5 and 6 people and a requirement of the competition was that each crew included at least one woman. This requirement was dropped in the 1930s and the disciplines altered to 2 and 4 man events.
Here is what those early sliders had to deal with: The run was one and a half miles long with no lips on the curves or walls on the straightaways. The ice wasn't nearly as smooth or as hard as it is now and the runners would gouge the unrefrigerated curves with every trip. The curves were slushed on stone and the straightaways on bare ground which would shift and heave with the frost, effectively creating a new drive line with every temperature change. The run was wide enough to allow a sled to get into precarious predicaments on the straightaways with usually disasterous consequences.
The sleds weren't exactly high-tech either but they came shooting down the mile and a half run faster than any sane person would care to travel under those circumstances. There was no suspension for the runners and the steering was done with wheels, which gave less control and feel of the run than the ropes that the europeans used. (Americans have gone to using ropes exclusively over the last few decades.) There was no protection on the sides of the sled and injured shoulders and elbows were accepted as just part of the sport. You held onto canvas straps with rubber balls attached and hoped for the best as you careened down the course while wearing a leather helmet which you knew wouldn't be much help in protecting your noggin in the likely event of an 81.
No wonder these guys and, yes, gals hoisted a few brews after surviving another day of sliding, they deserved it! |
Length: 2.7 meters (about 8 ft)
Length: 3.8 meters (about 11 ½ ft)
-$400+ for shoes and covers
-Safety Certified
-Worn for aerodynamics, not protection