WinterSports2002.com - It takes guts to ride skeleton

WinterSports2002.com, Wednesday, October 31, 2001

It takes guts to ride skeleton

Deemed by some as the oldest, and perhaps most dangerous of the three sliding sports, this head-first mission on steel or fiberglass sleds reach speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. Although most similar to luge racing, skeleton is aligned with bobsledding — forming the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation — rather than the U.S. Luge Association. Skeleton features men's and women's competition but solo only.

OLYMPIC OVERVIEW

Skeleton is being reintroduced to the world in the 2002 Winter Games for the first time in 52 years. The sport was formerly part of the 1928 and 1948 Olympic Games, when the competition was held in St. Moritz. American Jim Shea, the defending world champion, is looking to become a third-generation Olympian and offers the United States its best shot at a medal. Reigning U.S. national champion and 1998 World Cup bronze medalist Chris Soule is also formidable.

EVENT DESCRIPTIONS

Skeleton is one of the most extreme sports in the Winter Olympics. A form of sledding, it is like luge with a wild difference: a skeleton athlete rides a three-foot sleds head down and face first.

One at a time, skeletoneers whip down the same track at Bear Hollow that is used for bobsled and luge, a steeply falling, winding wonder of banked curves and straightaways about 0.8 of a mile long. As the racer rockets down the track at nearly 80 miles per hour, sometimes the helmet's chin guard scrapes along the ice, adding a quiet, eerie "skreeee" to the sled's whoosh.

Skeleton races often are held in heats with top competitors in one heat surviving to race in the next. The final score is based on total time for the heats.

Skeleton made its Olympics debut in 1928 during the Games at St. Moritz. Switzerland. But it disappeared from the roster until the 1948 Games, again in St. Moritz. Then skeleton went into an even longer decline, left off the Olympics schedule until its revival in the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics.

For the first time in the history of the Olympics, women will compete in this thrilling sport. Men compete against men, women against women, in separate events. As of the 2000-01 season, 30 countries were fielding teams, according to the U.S. Bobsled & Skeleton Federation.

The latest schedule for the 2002 Games calls for skeleton races to be held at the Utah Olympic Park, Bear Hollow, on Wednesday, Feb. 20, from 9 a.m. until noon.