Bobsleigh
The bobsled bobsleigh or (from English: sleigh / sled: bob sled: beto or betotrineo) is a winter Olympic sport with the luge and skeleton represent different forms of downhill sledding.
Bobsleigh two
Like luge and skeleton, its origin is located in the Swiss Alps in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, the first bobsleigh club was founded in the world in 1897 in St. Moritz, Switzerland and from there spread to other parts of Europe. The first official competitions that we can consider dating from 1914. The International Bobsleigh Federation was founded in 1923.
In its first decades of life the bobsleigh had little to do with what is now, as the materials, the design, the tracks until it has completely changed almost beyond recognition. At first sleds were made of wood, but soon became constructed of steel.
In the bobsleigh two modalities, bobs and bobs to 2 to 4 (there is no individual bobsleigh). The first world championships were held in 1924, only to bobs to 4, while in 1931 and includes a 2 bobs. In the Olympic Games and debuted in the first edition of the Winter Games in Chamonix, France in 1924, and bobs two began to argue in Lake Placid, USA in 1932. Since then it has always been on the agenda, except for the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, USA A new development took place in the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City 2002 which included first female tests.
An important development took place in 1952, when limiting the weight of the sled and its occupants, because before that date, participants had to have great weight if they wanted any chance of success. The new rule made it more accessible.
However, the main advances came in the field of materials, in two respects: the new sleds steel and fiberglass used for the manufacture of the latest technological advances in aerodynamics, and not least, artificial slopes in the you can reach truly amazing speeds, with which they could never have heard the first practitioners of this sport. The ice rinks are narrow paths, winding and stilted, with a specified number of left and right turns.
The key to the bobsleigh is normally at the start. It is critical that those crews get first meters as fast as possible by pushing the sled on those meters early, so people must be strong and fast addition, since the initial explosion usually the result depends. The differences between participants rarely exceed a few hundredths so any small error is impossible to recover. Although the sled has a brake, this is only used when passing the finish line. Speeds often exceed 150 km per hour and forces riders to support 4 or 5 “G”.
Tests are played in two legs, adding developed in both time and winning one that totals less time. In case of tie, something not uncommon, there is no playoff, but we share the medal.
While security has improved greatly in recent years, and although participants are equipped with helmets and special suits, accidents sometimes occur when he went off on a curve, and can be very dangerous, and on several occasions has led to the death of some participants.
The difficulty of this sport is in its high cost, especially of the facility, making only practiced in a very small number of countries, mainly in northern Europe, U.S. and others. There are very few facilities as a track maintenance requires many resources that hardly compensates. Major powers are Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
Years ago there was a curious episode. Some Americans who were vacationing in Jamaica saw a sled competition over land very popular in this Caribbean country, and they vaguely recalled the bobsleigh, and then came up with the idea of preparing a Jamaican team to compete in Olympic Games 1988 held in Calgary, Canada. So did the Jamaican team and participate in these Olympic Games, being a real attraction especially for the media. Although its logical outcome was not brilliant, this episode was cause for a Disney movie producer who was originally entitled “Cool Runnings” ( “Chosen for victory” in Spain, “Jamaica under 0” in Latin America), released in 1994 with quite successful. Over the years Jamaica has continued to participate in bobsleigh competitions regularly and quite acceptable results.
