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.
Maya Pedersen-Bieri is a Swiss-Norwegian skeleton racer who has competed since 1995. She won the gold medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. She retired from the sport in 2010 before returning to compete for Norway in 2016, becoming at the oldest woman to start a World Cup race when she returned to the top level of skeleton in 2017. She is listed in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation athlete registration system as Maya Pedersen.
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.
Phylicia George is a Canadian Olympic track and field athlete and bobsledder.
Elizabeth Anne Yarnold, OBE is a British former skeleton racer who joined the Great Britain national squad in 2010. With consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2014 and 2018, she is the most successful British Winter Olympian and the most successful Olympic skeleton athlete of all time from any nation. She won the 2013–14 Skeleton World Cup, followed by a gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Yarnold was selected to be one of the two women skeleton drivers representing Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and went on to become the first person to defend an Olympic gold in skeleton and the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympic title. Yarnold set the track record for women's skeleton at the Olympic venue in the final heat of the race with a time of 51.46 seconds, beating Jacqueline Lölling's pre-Olympic record by nearly 1.3 seconds and her own first-heat record by 0.2 second. Yarnold was also the flag bearer for Great Britain at the Pyeongchang opening ceremony.
Elena Valeryevna Nikitina is a Russian skeleton racer who joined the national squad in 2009. She rides a Schneider sled, and her coach is Denis Alimov. Prior to starting skeleton, she was an association football player.
Sophia Griebel is a German skeleton racer who has raced at the Winter Olympics and the Skeleton World Cup. She started racing skeleton in 2005 and was selected to the German national team in 2008; she was a luger before switching to skeleton. Her personal coach is Christian Baude and she uses an FES sled. Away from sport, she works for the German Federal Police. Griebel was injured in 2016 and spent 18 months recovering before returning to the World Cup circuit in November 2017, but after poor showings in the season's first two races, she was replaced on the German World Cup squad by Anna Fernstädt.
Elisabeth Maier is a retired Canadian skeleton racer. In 2008, she was encouraged to try sliding sports by her father, who had shared an airplane trip with members of the Canadian luge team, but as a 14-year-old, she was too young to train bobsleigh, so she tried out for skeleton instead. She used a Bromley sled. Vathje was named one of the three women to represent Canada in skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after finishing third in the World Cup season standings for 2017–18. She is married to Austrian bobsleigh driver Benjamin Maier. She retired in 2022 after being left off the Canadian team for the 2021–22 season.
Jane Channell is a Canadian skeleton racer who has competed since 2011 and was selected to the national team in 2013, joining the Skeleton World Cup squad in 2015. Channell was inspired to try skeleton by Jon Montgomery's gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Before skeleton, Channell played softball and competed in track and field, winning the Great Northwest Athletic Conference indoor track titles in 60 metres and 200 metres. Channell was named one of the three women to represent Canada in skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after finishing fifth in both the overall and World Cup standings for the 2017–18 season.
Jacqueline "Jacka" Lölling is a German skeleton racer who has won numerous races and championships, including the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics skeleton competition in 2012 and the 2017 World Championships. She began competing in skeleton at the age of 12, and was selected to the German national team in 2009. She won her first two international races, as a fifteen-year-old on the Europe Cup circuit, at Cesana Pariol in 2010. Her personal coach is Kathi Wichterle, and she rides an FES sled. When not racing, Lölling works for the German Federal Police.
Tina Hermann is a German skeleton racer and a four-time World champion. She began racing in 2007 and was selected to the national team in 2009. She is coached by Dirk Matschenz (personal) and Jens Müller (national); away from the track she is a police officer.
Germany competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 153 competitors in 14 sports. They won 31 medals in total, 14 gold, 10 silver and 7 bronze, ranking second in the medal table after Norway at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Germany excelled in ice track events, biathlon, Nordic combined and Ski jumping. The men's ice hockey team took a silver medal, having lost a closely contested final to Olympic Athletes from Russia.
Mirela "Mimi" Rahneva is a Canadian skeleton racer. Her family immigrated to Canada in 1997; her father, Stoyan, was a competitive gymnast, and her mother was an elite sprinter. After playing rugby in high school and at the University of Guelph, she began competing in skeleton in 2012 and was selected to the Canadian national team in 2016. She is coached by Quin Sekulich and rides a Bromley sled. She was named one of the three women to represent Canada in skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after earning eighth on the World Cup season standings for 2017–18.
Kimberley Bos is a Dutch skeleton racer who competes on the Skeleton World Cup circuit. She started competing internationally in 2009, originally in bobsleigh, and was selected to the Dutch national team in 2010; she switched to skeleton for the 2013–14 European Cup season. Her personal coach is Urta Rozenstruik and she rides a Bromley sled. Away from the track, Bos is a physiotherapy student, occasionally serving as "unofficial physio" to the other athletes. Bos was the only woman named to represent the Netherlands in skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where she finished eighth. Bos returned for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where she won the bronze medal and became the first Dutch skeleton athlete to win a medal.
Jaclyn Narracott is an Australian skeleton racer who competes on the Skeleton World Cup circuit. She began international skeleton competition in 2012 when she joined the Australian national team; in 2011 she competed in bobsleigh for two European Cup races. Narracott has competed on the World Cup, the top level of international skeleton, since 2014; prior to that she competed on the European and North American Cups. She slides on a Bromley sled, and lives and trains in Bath, England, with the British bobsleigh and skeleton athletes. Australian Olympic track and bobsleigh athlete Paul Narracott is her uncle. She is in a relationship with British skeleton slider Dom Parsons.
Mica McNeill is a British bobsledder. She won a silver medal at the 2012 Youth Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and at the 2021–22 Bobsleigh World Cup event in Sigulda, Latvia. She competed at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics.
Lisa-Marie Buckwitz is a German bobsledder. She won a gold medal in the two-woman event at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and also competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Laura Nolte is a German bobsleigh pilot, who began competing for the national team in 2015 and won the gold medal in the two-woman bobsleigh event at the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming the youngest in bobsleigh history to win the title. In 2021, she won the gold medal in the two-woman event at the IBSF European Championships 2021 held in Winterberg, Germany. In the same month, she also won the gold medal in the two-woman event at the IBSF Junior World Championships 2021 held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Hannah Neise is a German skeleton racer who has competed since 2014. She is currently ranked 9th worldwide in women's skeleton racing by the IBSF.
Breeana "Bree" Walker is an Australian bobsledder. She started out as a hurdler and switched to bobsledding in 2016. In 2018–19 she made her debut in the Bobsleigh World Cup. She won several monobob competitions.
Great Britain 
