Talk:Skeleton (sport)

Sleds

Can some one add more detail (and photos) about the sleds? I see these things on the Olympics and can't make sense of them. Do they have sharpened skates underneath or do they have smooth rails. Of TV, these things look like they are held together by duct tape. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.96.146 (talk) 02:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Faster

Which is faster, skeleton or luge? Lisiate 02:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Luge is several mph faster. As a skeleton athlete myself, I estimate (I can't find official exact figures) skeleton speeds by elite athletes approach a maximum of 81-84 mph on the fastest tracks. By comparison, as noted on his website, Tony Benshoof set a record in 2001 (current?) of 86.6 mph for luge. Flyingpenguin

Thanks for that, still I imagine going head first feels faster! Lisiate 23:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that the article needs to have greater clarity (more explicit) in its separation of the sports - cresta, kunstbahn skeleton, luge. For example, not only are the sleds and the techniques (and the athletic requirements) of the sports very different, but they use different tracks too (although these may be at the same 'venue'). Luzrluzr (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit

My 2/11/06 edit--Condensed wordy 2nd paragraph. Removed statement about Grand National being current premier event of sport, which is demonstrably incorrect (source: FIBT.com results page). I also think the new "Olympic Rules" bullet-points section can be condensed, although I didn't do so. Flyingpenguin

Training

What all do athletes do to train for this event? How do you learn this sport? What is the skill involved? Is it mainly having the nerve to do it and the ability to let gravity have its way with you? Or is the rider/athlete actively controlling what happens in some way?

Name origin

How did this sport get its name? --Doom Child 05:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, four years passed and no-one answered? Please somebody clarify this question! I am interested in it, too! --Ivan Linares (talk) 01:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The name skeleton is from its shape. It used to be called Cresta Sliding

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Skeleton is only part of the name. It is a Skeleton Bob Sled or Sleigh. I always understood that the Skeleton Bob was a Bob sled/sleigh that had been stripped to the bone but the Team GB website seems to know of some controversy: "It is unclear how the sport received its name with a number of explanations including the miss-pronunciation of Norwegian, to the metal sleds looking like a human skeleton or resembling the ‘skeleton’ of a bobsleigh."14:37, 14 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apoliheres (talk • contribs)

OED confirms that the term 'skeleton' is applied to a vehicle or other conveyance of basic or light construction and it cites skeleton car, skeleton gig etc also 'skeleton bob' defining 'bob' as an abbreviation of 'bob-sled'. Apoliheres (talk) 14:57, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Skeleton Vs Toboganing

These are not the same especially in the context of The Cresta Run, the Cresta Run is not a skeleton run it is a tobogan run. Also on the cresta the rider has spikes on the end of the feet which are used for breaking and steering wheras the skeleton does not.

skeleton and tobogan

I recall as a child in the '70s watching Wide World of Sports, I believe, a sport called "Tobogan". The rider laying head first on a sled with a sliding seat that apparently was used to gain control/stability in the turns. The sled had handles on the front, but the rider would let go in the straights and fold his arms flat against his side to reduce wind resistance. I was dissappointed to not see it in the first Winter Olympics I remember viewing. Instead, there was the awkward looking Luge event along with the familiar but very different sport of Bobsled. I assumed Tobogan was simply a sport that had unfortunately lost popularity at that point.

Flash to 2002. Surprised to see a VERY similar sport introduced in the Winter Games. Skeleton. No sliding seat now, but otherwise virtually the same. Ther was no mention of the sport Tobogan during the broadcast as I recall. Was this new sport Skeleton just a renamed version of Tobogan? No info. Checking the Wikipedia articles provided very little clarification. The history of Skeleton jumps from 1946 to 2002. This in itself is curious. No notable events or developments in this sport from 1946-2002? None worth mentioning in an article devoted exclusively to the sport?

Toboganning article has no mention of a competitive sport by the name "Tobogan".

There is however, the mention in the "Skeleton" article that Skeleton is still known as "Tobogan" in some areas of Europe.

So are they the same sport, different name? Did one evolve into the other? And perhaps evolve back into the original? Was there ever a sport called "Tobogan" we would have beeen exposed to in the US? Is my childhood memory flawed in some way? And if so, how exactly?

What did I see on WWS back in the mid to late '70s? Racerx11 (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Image

The image should be replaced with [1] which is a higher-resolution, unmodified copy of the same image on commons. -- 87.174.99.121 (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Danger

Isn't skeleton called that because of the danger of the sport? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.66.198 (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Sled specifications

The article has "Some athletes opt to attach ballasts if the combined weight of athlete and sled falls below the minimum combined weight." But no indication of what the minimum weight is. Davidships (talk) 15:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The article states "...if sled falls below the maximum combined weight...", not minumum. Nwgguy (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Updates

I've added a new section describing the structure of international competition as it currently stands and fixed a few obsolete references to FIBT (now IBSF) but lots of old references remain. It would be great if someone could go through all the references to the 2014 rules and verify that they still apply in the 2017 rules, then update the footnotes accordingly. 121a0012 (talk) 23:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Safety

Here's a NYT story, with a link to another NYT story, about the safety, particularly brain injuries leading to suicides, of skeleton and other sliding sports. There are some significant differences from this article, including a peak of 84g.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/sports/olympics/olympics-bobsled-suicide-brain-injuries.html SLEDHEAD
Sledding Athletes Are Taking Their Lives. Did Brain-Rattling Rides and High-Speed Crashes Damage Their Brains?
By Matthew Futterman
New York Times
July 26, 2002
--Nbauman (talk) 15:32, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Maximum weight (or is it Minimum?)

The article says: "Some athletes opt to attach ballasts if the combined weight of athlete and sled falls below the maximum combined weight."

How can something fall below a maximum and then require ballasts to go to or above the maximum? Isn't maximum the max / highest weight allowed?

The wording would work better with the word minimum.

--Bmoshier (talk) 10:18, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

It is beneficial for the combined weight of sled and pilot to be as high as practical. If the weight is less than the maximum permitted by the rules, the pilot may add weights to the sled, up to whichever weight limit (combined or sled alone) is most restrictive. If the pilot gains body weight, they would then have to remove the ballast to remain under the combined weight limit. A down side of increasing the weight of the sled is that it then requires more force to push at the start, so not all athletes will benefit from adding ballast even if it means their combined weight is lighter than the rules would otherwise allow. 121a0012 (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Skeleton vs Luge sleds.

In the article it claims that skeleton sleds give more precise control than a luge sled, but I do know it’s quite the opposite. Luge sleds have far finer control and that’s why they are notably faster. Skeleton sleds have muted weight shifting control. I have no source other than I am a full time luge athlete and simply know. 38.122.120.123 (talk) 13:17, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

ICC discontinuation

According to the official English-language broadcast commentary, this weekend's races in Igls were the last ever Intercontinental Cup races. However, there has been no written announcement from the IBSF, so I assume this is something that the teams have been told to expect but has yet to be formally approved by the IBSF Council. The rationale suggested by the TV announcers is that this is a response to relatively thin fields in non-Olympic-qualifying years, with federations having to split their athletes between the five circuits: it would reduce costs and improve competition to have a larger field at World Cup venues, and would result in the 20-athlete cut actually functioning as designed. Still waiting for official word so that we can update that section. 121a0012 (talk) 23:56, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The IBSF finally said something official about the end of the ICC, in their season-opening press release, so I added that. It would be good for someone to look at the 2023 rulebook and see what other changes require updates to this article. 121a0012 (talk) 03:05, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Brain injuries leading to "suicides"

The use of the word "suicides" in the article is misleading. The definition of suicide is "the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally." I do not believe those involved in the sport are intentionally planning to end their life; it is an (unfortunate) accident risk which is associated with the sport. Nwgguy (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2024 (UTC)