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.
Martin Rettl is an Austrian skeleton racer who competed from 1989 to 2006. Competing in two Winter Olympics, he won a silver medal in the men's skeleton event at Salt Lake City in 2002.
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 Israeli Bobsled and Skeleton Team is the official bobsleigh and skeleton team of Israel. The team is the competitive wing of Bobsled/Skeleton Israel, which Aaron Zeff, former National Football League player John Frank, and David Greaves founded in 2002.
The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) is the international sports federation for the sliding sports of Bobsleigh and Skeleton. 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 IBSF World Championships, part of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, have taken place on an annual basis since 1930. Starting with 2002, no World Championships being held in non-Winter Olympic years. A two-man event was included in 1931 with a combined championship occurring in 1947. Men's skeleton was introduced as a championship of its own in 1982 while women's bobsleigh and skeleton events were introduced in 2000. Both the women's bobsleigh and skeleton events were merged with the men's bobsleigh events at the 2004 championships. A mixed team event, consisting of one run each of men's skeleton, women's skeleton, 2-man bobsleigh, and 2-women bobsleigh, was held from 2007 to 2019. In 2020 it was replaced with skeleton mixed team event, consisting of one run each of men's and women's skeleton. Women's monobob event was included in 2021.
The Königssee bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track is a venue in Germany for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, located in Schönau am Königssee, Bavaria, near Königssee and the border with Austria. Completed 55 years ago in 1968, it is the first permanent, artificially refrigerated bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in the world. In July 2021, the track was severely damaged by the floods that affected the European continent.
The Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run is a venue for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton in the United States, located at the Lake Placid Olympic Sports Complex in Lake Placid, New York. This venue was used for the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and for the only winter Goodwill Games in 2000. The third and most recent version of the track was completed in 2000 with the track hosting both the first FIBT World Championships and FIL World Luge Championships done outside of Europe, doing so in 1949 and 1983. In 2010 the bobsled track was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Amy Gough is a Canadian skeleton racer who has competed since 2002. Her best result in a Skeleton World Cup event was first at Winterberg, Germany, in December 2011, while her best overall finish in a Skeleton World Cup was fifth in the 2010–11 Skeleton World Cup.
The women's skeleton event at the 2010 Winter Olympics took place at the Whistler Sliding Centre on 18–19 February. The competition was won by British athlete Amy Williams, who set new course records for the track on her first and third runs. Williams, who had never before won a World Cup or World Championship event, became the first British athlete to win a solo Winter Olympic gold medal in 30 years. German sliders Kerstin Szymkowiak and Anja Huber won the silver and bronze medals respectively. Williams' teammate Shelley Rudman, who had won the silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and Canadian Mellisa Hollingsworth, both of whom had been expected to be in medal contention, were disappointed.
Christopher Spring is an Australian-Canadian 4 x Olympic bobsledder who has competed since 2008. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, he competed for Australia in the two-man event. He switched allegiance to Canada later in 2010 and has since competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics, 2018 Winter Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics for Canada.
Janis Strenga is a Latvian bobsledder, brakeman who has competed since 2008.
Alexander Gassner is a German skeleton racer who has competed since 2004. In 2007, he joined the German national squad. Gassner became Junior World Champion in skeleton in 2010. 2011–12 Skeleton World Cup he finished 6th. He took first place in the 2012 German Skeleton Championship.
The European Bobsleigh and Skeleton Championships are the main bobsleigh and skeleton championships in Europe. The first bobsleigh European Championships with two-man event was held in 1929 in Davos, Switzerland. However, as Bobsleigh World Championships started to be held on an annual basis since following year, European Championships didn't resumed until 1965. A four-man event was included in 1967 when first combined championship occurred. The men's European Skeleton Championships were held separately in 1981–1988 before resuming in 2003 when women's skeleton event was added as well. In 2004 the first women's European Bobsleigh Championship was held with two-woman event. The following year both the women's bobsleigh and skeleton events were merged with the men's bobsleigh events at the European Championships. Since then, all bobsleigh and skeleton events are usually competes at the same time and venue. Women's monobob event was included in 2022.
Thorsten Margis is a German bobsledder.
Mariama Jamanka is a retired German bobsledder who won Gold in the two-woman event with Lisa Buckwitz at the 2018 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.
Kim Kalicki is a German bobsledder who competes for TuS Eintracht Wiesbaden 1846. She also representing the Germany national team since 2015 and won the silver medal in the two-woman bobsleigh event at the Bobsleigh World Championships in 2020 and 2021 with Kira Lipperheide and Ann-Christin Strack, respectively.
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 2023 she has become the first European to win the Monobob World Champion title at the Sankt Moritz World Championships, while being also the winner of the 2023 European Monobob Champion title in Altenberg, Germany. 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 season, she also won the gold medal in the two-woman event at the IBSF Junior World Championships 2021 held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The two-woman competition in bobsleigh at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 18 February and 19 February, at the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh and Luge Track in Yanqing District of Beijing. Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi of Germany won the event, the first Olympic medal for them. Mariama Jamanka and Alexandra Burghardt, also of Germany, won the silver medal, and Elana Meyers Taylor and Sylvia Hoffman, of the United States, bronze.
