Bobsleigh is a fantastic, exhilarating winter sport. It combines great teamwork, power and technical ability to travel down the ice track in a bobsleigh as fast as possible. Women’s bobsleigh only competes in the two-man event, and the team consists of a driver and a brake woman. Both athletes need to push the bobsleigh as hard and fast as possible at the start of the race before they jump into the bobsleigh – for every 1/100th of a second quicker at the start, equals around 3/10th of a second gained at the finish, a big margin in bobsleigh. The brake woman’s role, once inside the sled, is to assume an aerodynamic position behind the driver which means bending forward with the head between the knees. Because the brake woman cannot see where she is going, she must learn and visualise the track and help to stabilise the bobsleigh by leaning into each corner. The final role of the brake woman is to bring the bobsleigh to a safe stop once it has crossed the finish line. The driver must know each track inside out and have the ability to drive the fastest lines possible, a centimeter higher or lower than the fastest line might be the difference between winning and not. If a driver can avoid over-steering and under-steering consistently, then ‘gold’ will never be far away – provided the equipment is of good quality.
A modern bobsleigh is made of light metals, steel runners, and an aerodynamic composite body. Competition sleds must be a maximum of 2.70m (8.9 ft) long and have a maximum combined weight of 340 kg (749.6 lbs). Metal weights may be added to the sled to reach these limits, as a heavier sled will pick up more speed on the ice. The runners act as the contact between the ice and the driver makes steers by pulling on two metal D-rings – left to go left and right to go right. It is essential that the runners are specially prepared for race day. This often means hours of sanding the steel running surface down with papers less than 9 microns in grade – the end result is that you can see the reflection of your smile in the runner once the job is done!
Bobsleigh tracks differ from one another in many ways by the vertical drop, the number of corners, the profile, the length and the technical difficulty. The average run or ‘lauf’ roughly takes between 51 seconds and 1 minute to complete and is on average around 0.8 miles (1300m) long. Normal races take the combined time of 2 runs, whereas in every major championship, the result is based upon the combined time of 4 runs. The bob team can often pull up to 5G’s of pressure and reach speeds in excess of 80mph (130km/h) on certain tracks, the fastest being the Olympic track in Whistler, Canada where top speeds of over 90mph are often reached.
In training, we wear many layers of warm clothing, as well as a helmet, burns vest and ice spikes. On competition day, all our protection remains the same except we get rid of the warm clothing and wear a performance-enhancing Lycra race suit.
Physical training for bobsleigh consists of speed, strength and power training. There are many exercises and drills that we undertake to enhance these qualities, such as plyometric work, sled pulling and Olympic weight lifting. We practice the ‘push start’ over the summer months at Camphill, North Yorkshire and at the University of Bath, very much like a bobsleigh on wheels.
Modern tracks are made of concrete, coated with ice and are controlled by a refrigeration system. They are required to have at least one straight section and one labyrinth (three turns in quick succession without a straight section). The exception is in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where the track is carved out of natural ice. Each year, workers cut out blocks of ice from the nearby lake, transport them and set them down through the woodland.
|
Country |
Track |
Length (m) |
Vertical |
Maximum |
Corners |
|
1 220 |
98.10 |
14 |
14 |
||
|
1 475 |
121.48 |
15 |
14 |
||
|
1 450 |
152 |
10.5 (average) |
16 |
||
|
1 413 |
122.22 |
15 |
18 |
||
|
1 306 |
117 |
10.35 |
13 |
||
|
1 330 |
110 |
15 (9.8% average) |
14 |
||
|
1 435 |
117 |
9.2 (average) |
19 |
||
|
1 722 |
130 |
15 (8.14 average) |
16 |
||
|
1 455 |
107 |
9.8 (average) |
20 |
||
|
1 340 |
103.9 |
8.1 (average) |
15 |
||
 Russia |
Rzhanaya Polyana (under construction) |
- | 150 | - | 19 |
