by Cameron Moore (8th)
Hello CMS. Welcome to the Sportscast, and Happy New Year! With the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy around the corner (full preview article coming soon), I thought the time would be right to talk about one of its sports: bobsleigh.
The sports of bobsled & skeleton have always fascinated me. There’s just something so fascinating about people zipping around a tube of ice at incomprehensible speeds. At least, that’s what I thought it was. Turns out, there’s a lot more than meets the eye.
Bobsled Mechanics
The mechanics used by bobsledders and the science of the sport is quite interesting. Bobsledders have to have a lot of strength to even start their race. In a traditional four-man bobsled race, runners have about half of a football field’s length to speed the 400 pound sled up to 25 miles per hour, in unison. The start is key since in the rest of the race, the only force pulling teams down the track is gravity, which is identical for every single run, of course. For all bobsled events, the start is the one time where sledders can build a speed advantage on their opponents.
This dives us directly into the slide down the ice, which has its own unique element of strategy. Athletes must be tucked down and make themselves as small as possible to improve aerodynamics in order to maintain momentum from the start. The driver also has to steer manually to stay on the track and avoid bumping into the barriers. The other three bobsledders shift their body weight in a bobbing motion to assist steering, giving the sport its name.
There is also another force of physics drastically affecting the sport: friction. Runners, which are the skate-like blades that allow sleds to run on the ice. Especially when they are turned, they create lots of friction. So, the goal of a driver is to stay on a perfect line while turning as little as possible. A perfect line is simply keeping the sled high during turns, but low enough to follow the inside line of the turn (think auto racing here), while also staying far enough off of the sides of the track to avoid scraping them.
Skeleton Mechanics
Skeleton, however, is maybe crazier. It’s a one-person race where racers slide down the same bobsledding track head-first on a very small sled. Their heads are barely above the ice while going at speeds of up to 95 mph and encountering 5Gs of force at some spots.
How the sled steers is also very different. In the bobsled, sledders do assist in the steering process by leaning, but the driver does most of it by using the steering system in the runners. However, that doesn’t exist in the skeleton, as all of the steering is controlled by only the single sledder’s body movements. Even a miniscule shift can determine the outcome of a race.
The start is also very unique. Racers start standing up and holding the handle of the sled. As they approach the starting point, they jump onto their sleds, giving them lots of momentum as they glide down the track.
Similar to bobsled, however, aerodynamics play a key role in determining the outcome of races. The racer is much more exposed, so they have to stay further down towards the ice in order to take advantage of momentum.
While the sports of bobsled and skeleton may look simple, they are far from it. These sports require a combination of power and technique in order to have the perfect run. When I first saw these sports, they just looked cool, and they still do. But now, the physics of the sports honestly fascinates me. That is why they are the underrated sports of the day.
Sources:
https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/perfect-slide-science-bobsledding