Bobsleigh

While the sled or toboggan has been used for travel and fun for some 700 years, today's bobsledders have to be fast and agile to reach the finish line first as well as right side up.

Many of the top athletes in the sport were at one time track runners because they have the strong legs needed to get their bobsleigh going on the icy track.

To start, the racers push off as fast as they can for approximately 50 metres. This stretch only takes about five seconds, but it is considered the most critical part of a bobsleigh run. Without a competitive start, a medal finish is almost impossible. At the end of the push-off, racers jump into the bobsled for a seated descent down a steep, icy and twisting track. Speeds can reach more than 140 kilometres per hour.

The driver steers by pulling on two pieces of rope. These ropes are attached to a steering bolt that turns the front frame of the bobsled. The brakeman stops the sled at the end of the run. In the four-man event two crewmen also take a ride down the track.

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

Men:
Two-man bobsleigh
Four-man bobsleigh

Women:
Two-man bobsleigh

Fast Facts:

• Bobsleigh has been part of every Olympic Winter Games program except in Squaw Valley 1960,  when organizers decided not to build a bobsleigh run.

• The four-man competition goes back to the 1924 Chamonix Games while the two-man started at the 1932 Lake Placid Games. Women's bobsleigh made its Olympic debut at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

• Teams have twice tied for first in an Olympic bobsleigh race, most recently in the two-man competition at the 1998 Nagano Games. Canada's Pierre Lueders shared gold with Italy's Guenther Huber. The only other tie occurred at the 1968 Grenoble Games, when Italy's Eugenio Monti tied with Germany's Horst Floth in the two-man event. At the time, world
bobsleigh rules granted the victory to the sled that had the fastest single heat, which gave the gold medal to Monti.

• Before participating in bobsleigh, Canada's Helen Upperton was a triple-jumper for the University of Texas; a stress fracture in her right foot ended her track career.