BOBSLEIGHING

What is Bobsleighing?

Bobsledding, also called bobsleighing, the sport of sliding down an ice-covered natural or artificial incline on a four-runner sled, called a bobsled, bobsleigh, or bob, that carries either two or four persons. The first ever Bobsled was built in Switzerland in the late 19th century by some wealthy tourists but the problem was the early built sleds were going down the streets, there was always a chance of collision and deadly accidents. The game continued to evolve and soon it became a recognized game. In the winter of 1884, a famous hotel in Switzerland known as “Badrutt” built a run for this game near the hamlet of Cresta. It was a designated place for Bobsleighing and the game became safer than ever before.
Now, it is also part of the Olympics and two types of Bobsleigh are popular, 2-man Bobsleigh and 4-man Bobsleigh. Nowadays, all Bobsleigh tournaments are dominated by the USA, Switzerland and Germany, where the conditions remain ideal for practicing for the tournaments. The first bobsleds were built in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in the late 19th century by wealthy tourists from Victorian Britain who were staying at the Palace Hotel owned by Caspar Badrutt. The early sleds were adapted from boys' delivery sleds and toboggans. These eventually evolved into bobsleighs, luges and skeletons. Initially the tourists would race their hand-built contraptions down the narrow streets of St. Moritz, however, as collisions increased growing opposition from St Moritz residents led to bobsledding being eventually banned from public highways. In the winter of 1884, Badrutt had a purpose-built run constructed near the hamlet of Cresta. The Cresta Run remains the oldest in the world and is the home of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club. It has hosted two Olympic Winter Games and is still in use. 

HISTORY

Bobsledding developed in the 1880s both in the lumbering towns of upstate New York and at the ski resorts of the Swiss Alps. The first organized competition (among teams consisting of three men and two women) was held in 1898 on the Cresta Run at Saint Moritz, Switzerland. The sport earned its name after competitors adopted the technique of bobbing back and forth to increase the speed of the sled. In 1923 bobsledding became an internationally recognized sport with the organization of the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing and with its inclusion in the first Olympic Winter Games at Chamonix, France, the following year. Since 1931 both two-person and four-person world-championship competitions have been held yearly, except during World War II. Though women have participated in bobsledding since the sport’s creation, international competition for women did not begin until the 1990s. The women’s two-person bobsled event made its Olympic debut in 2002. The gold medal for the inaugural women’s event went to Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers of the United States. Flowers was the first black athlete to win an Olympic gold medal at the Winter Games.  Modern bobsleigh teams compete to complete a downhill route in the fastest times. An aggregate time from several runs is used to determine the winners. The four-man event has been featured since the first Winter Games in 1924 in Chamonix, France. The only exception was the 1960 games in Squaw Valley when the organizing committee decided not to build a track to reduce costs. The two-man event was introduced at the 1932 games and a two-woman event was first contested at the 2002 Winter Olympics.  고스톱