| Skeleton at the V Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
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| Venue | Cresta Run | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 15 from 6 nations | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Medals awarded for the skeleton discipline at the 1948 Winter Olympics held in St Moritz. At that time the sport was called cresta, and St. Moritz had the most famous Cresta Run, dating to 1884. In many locations the sport was referred to as tobogganing during these and the 1928 Games. The contest was run over a total of six runs.
| Gold | Nino Bibbia  Italy |
| Silver | John Heaton  United States |
| Bronze | John Crammond  Great Britain |
Turn 10 at Cesana Pariol, where the bobsled, luge, and skeleton competitions took place for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, is named for Bibbia.
John Heaton also won the silver medal in skeleton at the 1928 Winter Olympics.
| Rank | Name | Country | Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Run 4 | Run 5 | Run 6 | Total | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Nino Bibbia |  Italy | 0:48.8 | 0:47.6 | 0:47.6 | 0:59.5 | 1:00.2 | 1:00.3 | 5:23.2 | — |
 | John Heaton |  United States | 0:48.1 | 0:47.4 | 0:47.7 | 1:00.0 | 1:00.2 | 1:01.2 | 5:24.6 | +1.4 |
 | John Crammond |  Great Britain | 0:47.4 | 0:47.7 | 0:47.9 | 1:00.9 | 1:00.9 | 1:00.3 | 5:25.1 | +1.9 |
| 4 | Wilbur Lee Martin | United States | 0:47.8 | 0:49.2 | 0:48.2 | 1:00.7 | 1:01.6 | 1:00.5 | 5:28.0 | +4.8 |
| 5 | Gottfried Kägi |  Switzerland | 0:48.9 | 0:48.8 | 0:48.7 | 1:00.8 | 1:01.6 | 1:01.1 | 5:29.9 | +6.7 |
| 6 | Richard Bott | Great Britain | 0:48.3 | 0:48.9 | 0:49.2 | 1:01.5 | 1:01.4 | 1:01.4 | 5:30.7 | +7.5 |
| 7 | James Coats | Great Britain | 0:48.8 | 0:48.7 | 0:49.0 | 1:02.3 | 1:01.7 | 1:01.4 | 5:31.9 | +8.7 |
| 8 | Fairchilds Maccarthy | United States | 0:48.8 | 0:48.3 | 0:49.4 | 1:03.6 | 1:02.7 | 1:02.7 | 5:35.5 | +12.3 |
| 9 | Thomas Clarke | Great Britain | 0:49.7 | 0:49.9 | 0:49.3 | 1:03.5 | 1:03.8 | 1:02.8 | 5:39.0 | +15.8 |
| 10 | C. William Johnson | United States | 0:47.7 | 0:48.4 | 0:48.0 | did not start | — | — | ||
| 11 | Milo Bigler | Switzerland | 0:48.4 | 0:48.4 | 0:48.7 | did not start | — | — | ||
| 12 | Dialma Balsegia | Switzerland | 0:49.2 | 0:49.0 | 0:48.6 | did not start | — | — | ||
| 13 | William Hirigoyen |  France | 0:52.7 | 0:49.9 | 0:51.0 | did not start | — | — | ||
| Christian Fischbacher | Switzerland | unknown | did not start | — | — | |||||
| Hugo Kuranda |  Austria | unknown | did not start | — | — | |||||
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Italy (ITA) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | United States (USA) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | Great Britain (GBR) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals (3 entries) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
Bobsleigh or bobsled is a team winter sport that involves making timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, also known as FIBT from the French Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing. National competitions are often governed by bodies such as the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, and the German Bobsleigh, Luge, and Skeleton Federation.
The 1948 Winter Olympics, officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as St. Moritz 1948, were a winter multi-sport event held from 30 January to 8 February 1948 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Games were the first to be celebrated after World War II; it had been twelve years since the last Winter Games in 1936.
The 1928 Winter Olympics, officially known as the II Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as St. Moritz 1928, was an international winter multi-sport event that was celebrated from 11 to 19 February 1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Skeleton is a winter sliding sport in which a person rides a small sled, known as a skeleton bobsled, down a frozen track while lying face down and head-first. The sport and the sled may have been named from the bony appearance of the sled.
The Cresta Run is a natural ice skeleton racing toboggan track in eastern Switzerland. Located in the winter sports town of St. Moritz, the 1.2125 km (0.753 mi) run is one of the few in the world dedicated entirely to skeleton. It was built in 1884 near the hamlet of Cresta in the municipality of Celerina/Schlarigna by the Outdoor Amusement Committee of the Kulm Hotel and the people of St. Moritz. The committee members were Major William Henry Bulpett, George Robertson, Charles Digby Jones, C. Metcalfe, and J. Biddulph. It has continued as a partnership to this day between the SMTC, founded in 1887, and the people of St. Moritz.
These are the results of the men's skeleton competition at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz. At that time the sport was called cresta, and St. Moritz had the most famous Cresta Run, dating to 1884. In many locations the sport was referred to as tobogganing during these and the 1948 Games. The competition took place on the Cresta Run and medals were awarded after a total of three runs down the course.
Skeleton is a winter sport featured in the Winter Olympics where the competitor rides head-first and prone on a flat sled. It is normally run on an ice track that allows the sled to gain speed by gravity. It was first contested at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz and again in 1948 Winter Olympics, after which it was discontinued as an Olympic sport. Skeleton was reintroduced at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, with both men's and women's events, and has been held in each Winter Olympic competition since. Skeleton is so-named as the first metal sleds introduced in 1892 were said to resemble a human skeleton.
Switzerland was the host nation for the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz. It was the second time that Switzerland had hosted the Winter Games, after the 1928 Winter Olympics, also in St. Moritz.
The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF), originally known by the French name Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT), is the international sports federation for bobsleigh and skeleton. It acts as an umbrella organization for 14 national bobsleigh and skeleton associations as of 2007. It was founded on 23 November 1923 by the delegates of Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States at the meeting of their first International Congress in Paris, France. In June 2015, it announced a name change from FIBT to IBSF. The federation's headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The FIBT World Championships 1982 took place in St. Moritz, Switzerland for the record fourteenth time. The Swiss city had hosted the event previously in 1931 (Four-man), 1935 (Four-man), 1937 (Four-man), 1938 (Two-man), 1939 (Two-man), 1947, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1965, 1970, 1974, and 1977. The skeleton event debuted at the championships after being held in St. Moritz at the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics and it marked the first time the event took place on the actual bobsleigh track and not on the Cresta Run.
John Rutherford Heaton was an American bobsledder and skeleton racer who competed from the late 1920s to the late 1940s.
Wilbur Lee Martin was an American skeleton racer who competed in the late 1940s. He finished fourth in the men's skeleton event at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz.
Lieutenant colonel Sir James Stuart Coats, 3rd Baronet MC was a British skeleton racer who competed in the late 1940s. He finished seventh in the men's skeleton event at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz. He served as President of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club from 1954 to 1956.
Farchild Maccarthy was born in Muskegon, Michigan was an American skeleton racer who competed in the late 1940s. He finished eighth in the men's skeleton event at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz.
Skijoring was a demonstration sport at the 1928 Winter Olympics, held in St. Moritz, Switzerland from February 11 through 19, 1928. The sole skijoring event of the Games was held on February 12, the second day of the Games. The sport of skijoring is one in which a person on skis is pulled by dogs, horses, or a form of mechanized transportation such as a snowmobile. In the 1928 Olympics, athletes were towed behind horses.
For the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, a total of five sports venues were used. The main stadium hosted the figure skating, ice hockey, and speed skating events. Skeleton was first held at the Cresta Run. Bobsleigh was held at the bob run. St. Moritz itself served as cross-country skiing venue and the cross-country part of the Nordic combined event. Weather gave two events run at these games problems, creating the largest margin of victory in Olympic history for one and the cancellation of the other.
For the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, a total of eight sports venues were used. The five venues used for the 1928 Winter Olympics were reused for these games. Three new venues were added for alpine skiing which had been added to the Winter Olympics program twelve years earlier in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. As of 2015, the bob run continues to be used for bobsleigh and the Cresta Run for skeleton while alpine skiing remains popular in St. Moritz.
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