After two appearances at the 1928 and 1948 Olympic Games, the skeleton was reintroduced at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002. Along with luge and bobsleigh, it is one of the three sliding sports on the program in Beijing (China). Here are all the rules you need to know to follow the test.
The competition
The principle of the skeleton is to go down an icy track as quickly as possible while lying on your stomach on a sledge with your head forward and piloting the machine by the pressure and action of your shoulders and your knees.
In the Chinese capital, the skeleton competition will offer two events: a men’s and a women’s.
The course of the tests
Participants perform a total of four rounds spread over two days, two rounds per day.
The rules
The participants go down the same track and complete four runs which are timed to the hundredth of a second. Their times are added together and the athlete who achieves the best cumulative time at the end of the four rounds is declared the winner.
equipment
Each competitor is dressed in a suit and a helmet to protect his head, which is only a few centimeters from the ice during the descent. The sled, molded to the body of the athlete, has top handles and steel runners, but it does not have brakes.
In Beijing, the track will be 1,615m long, with a maximum gradient of 18% and no less than 16 bends.