

Back in 2010, Salon reported that most skeleton athletes don't find safety to be a concern. Which is true for the hard-working athletes who have devoted their lives to this seemingly dangerous sport.

I mean, unless you are into that sort of thing. So it looks like skeleton might be dangerous, but at least it's not as fast as luge. In comparison, the top American luger, Christopher Mazdzer, topped that speed with 137.3 kilometers per hour, which comes out to 85.3 mph, and was only able to earn 13th place. At the Sochi 2014 Olympics, United States competitor Matthew Antoine took home a bronze in men's skeleton with a maximum speed of 129.2 kilometers per hour, which is about 80.3 mph. The sport looks extremely terrifying, but according to Slate, skeleton is actually not as fast as the other sliding sports. However, in skeleton you are soaring down that ice head-first in what looks like a pretty pricey sled.Īt this moment, you are probably trying to figure out if you would rather go feet first or head first down a slide of ice. Skeleton is kind of like luge in that they are both sports that involve sliding on ice with little protection. So skeleton is a sport that involves people riding a small sled, known as a skeleton bobsled, down an ice track while lying face down.
#Luge vs skeleton movie#
If you're wondering what skeleton is, it's kind of like luge, but granted most of my information on luge comes from the movie Cool Runnings, which is actually all about bobsledding, something I recently found out is not the same thing as luge. After that run it didn't appear again until 2002, according to New York Times Magazine. Skeleton first appeared in the 1928 Olympics and then once more in the 1948 Olympics.
#Luge vs skeleton full#
The sport is fast and uses the full body, and the real question remains if is skeleton dangerous. 8, and with the Olympics comes a lot of adrenaline-fueled high-risk games that would make any normal person at home ask, "But why?" There is one sport that is fairly new on the Olympic scene and has had a rise in popularity, called skeleton. Other successful bobsleigh athletes to train here include Paula Walker and Rebekah Wilson, who won the 2011 World Junior Championship.It is almost time for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, starting Feb. The bobsleigh squad have also enjoyed Olympic success, with the four-man crew of John Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon claiming bronze at Sochi 2014. Lizzy Yarnold succeeded Amy as Olympic champion at Sochi 2014 and became the first skeleton athlete to defend her title at PyeongChang 2018, where team-mates Laura Deas and Dom Parsons – a PhD student at the time – also won bronze medals.

Seven of those have come in skeleton, with Alex Coomber winning bronze at Salt Lake City in 2002 and Shelley Rudman taking silver at Torino 2006 before fellow University of Bath graduate Amy Williams made history with a stunning gold medal at Vancouver 2010. The push-start track was officially opened in 2002 and athletes training at the University have won medals at all but one of the Winter Olympic Games staged since then – a magnificent total of eight between them.

The University of Bath has the UK’s only bobsleigh and skeleton push-start track and is proud partners of the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association, based on campus. Skeleton Lizzy Yarnold won skeleton Olympic gold in both 20
