Bobsleigh has featured at every edition of the Winter Olympics, with the exception of Squaw Valley 1960, and history will be made with a record 12 medals up for grabs in Beijing.
Overview
Australian athletes first participated in the bobsleigh event at Calgary 1988, with Astrid Loch-Wilkinson and Kylie Read Australia’s highest placed finishers with their 14th in the two-woman event at Torino 2006. Australia will be represented at Beijing 2022 by Bree Walker, who will compete in the inaugural women’s monobob event, and will be joined by brakewoman Kiara Reddingius in the two-woman event.
Bobsleigh athletes launch their sled from the starting gate before jumping into the sled and racing down the course. The loaded crew will take incredibly tight corners and reach speeds over 130km/h.
Crews consist of a pilot and brakemen. Brakemen provide the high energy starting push, give the sled weight and pull the brakes at the end of the run. Pilots steer by manipulating a pair of ropes connected to steel runners on the sled.
The bobsleigh program will take place from Sunday 13th February to Sunday 20th of February. Australian eyes will be pinned to the television on the first two days of competition as ‘bobsled Bree’ seeks to win Australia’s first Winter Olympic medal in the newly introduced monobob event. Kiara Reddingius will then join Bree for the two-woman event on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th.
What’s the story?
- Catch Australian women’s monobob world no.5 Bree Walker in action.
- All bobsleigh events will take place at the Yanqing Sliding Centre, a new purpose-built track which also hosts the Skeleton and Luge sports.
- The track will feature a full 360-degree turn, the first time a kreisel has been an Olympic track feature since the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.
- Monobob makes its Olympic debut in Beijing.
Ones to watch
The Aussies
Bree Walker has racked up an impressive eight world series podiums in monobob over the last two seasons, including two International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Series (IBSF) victories in the last 12 months. At the IBSF World Series in Winterberg, Germany – one month before Beijing 2022 – she finished second to world no.1 Elena Meyers Taylor (USA). Bree enters the Games ranked fifth in the world in monobob and will be hoping to claim Australia’s first Olympic bobsleigh medal.
Former heptathlete Kiara Reddingius will then add her pushing power for the two-woman event, with the pair notching Australia’s best ever two-woman World Cup result to finish seventh at the Winterberg IBSF World Cup in December 2021.
The competition
Kallie Humphries (USA) will become a four-time Olympian in Beijing and already holds two Olympic gold medals with one bronze. After switching countries from Canada to represent the United States of America, she will look to claim her third Olympic title in the two-woman event. Humphries enters the event as the reigning world champion and is the third ranked woman in monobob.
Laura Nolte (GER) and Kim Kalicki (GER) have been Germany’s best two-woman bobsleigh athletes at the 2021-22 world series, ranking no.2 and no.3 in the world respectively. Nolte, 22, became a monobob Youth Olympic champion in 2016 and won four of the seven two-woman world series events she entered this season. Kalicki won a couple of two-woman world series events, which gave Germany the win in seven of eight world series events in the 2021-22 season.
Georgeta Popescu (ROU) is Romania’s first ever Winter Youth Olympic gold medallist, who won gold in the women’s monobob at Lausanne 2020. Popescu will be making her Olympic debut at Beijing in the women’s monobob. Can she replicate her success from the Youth Olympics and claim her first Olympic title?
Competition format
Women’s Monobob, 2-man, 2-woman, 4-man
In each bobsleigh discipline four heats are held over two consecutive days, with two heats each day. Results are calculated by adding the times of all competition heats together, with the owner of the fastest overall time crowned an Olympic champion. In the last heat on the final day, the athlete starting order will be sorted in reverse order of their ranking after the previous heat. This positions the leader to have the last run of the day for their shot at a gold medal.
