Nuts and Bolts: To steer, the driver holds ropes
connected to polished
steel runners. Most drivers wear
gloves; some steer
bare-handed to have a better feel for the ropes. Crew members
shift weight to help the
driver steer — they can't see the track ahead, but learn the
timing of a particular run's
curves. Speeds can reach 90 miles per hour, and runs take less than a minute. When braking, the crew feels five
times the force of
gravity.
History: Although sleds have been around for centuries, bobsled racing didn't begin until 1877 in Davos, Switzerland, where a steering mechanism was attached to a toboggan.
The world's first "bobsleigh" club was founded in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1896, spurring the growth of the sport in winter resorts throughout Europe. By 1914, bobsled races were taking place on a wide variety of natural ice courses.
The first racing sleds were made of wood but were soon replaced by steel sleds that came to be known as bobsleds, so named because of the way crews bobbed back and forth to increase their speed on the straightaways.
In 1923, the Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) was founded and the following year a four-man race took place at the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. A two-man event was added at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., a format that has remained to the present.
American-built sleds and American athletes ruled the sport until the late 1950s, when Europeans came out with better sleds. By far, the most successful bobsledding nations have been Switzerland and Germany.
The sport has since expanded around the world to include countries such as Jamaica, Armenia, Morocco, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and at the 1995 World Championships, no fewer than eight nations placed in the top 10 in the four-man event while seven nations were represented in the top 10 of the two-man competition.
The most well-known of those teams is from Jamaica, where the average temperature is about 80 degrees. The exploits of the Jamaican team became the gist of a movie, "Cool Runnings," and their training was financed by a beer company and a "secret admirer." At Lillehammer, the Jamaicans finished 14th, their best finish and ahead of both sleds from the United States.
