What you don't know about the Winter Olympics: this "lying to win" project, why do athletes talk about discoloration?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 24, 2019 -- What you don't know about the Winter Olympics: Why do athletes talk about this "lying to win" project?

Xinhua News Agency reporter Wu Kunpeng

At the Beijing Winter Olympics, there is such a "driving class": it not only goes downhill all the way, but also does not have a steering wheel, and athletes only need to "lie down" to win gold medals, and even two people can lie together. However, this project has made many athletes talk about it, it is sledding.

Bobsleigh competition at the Winter Olympics was a luge race, which had appeared in Norway as early as 1480, and the world's first luge competition was held in Davos, Switzerland, in 1883. From the establishment of the Luge Club in Germany in 1889, the sport quickly sprang up in Austria, Germany, Italy, the United States and other places. The official establishment of the International Bobsleigh Federation brought the sport into a period of rapid development and was listed as an official sport at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.

Sledding, also known as "F1" on ice, can reach speeds of more than 130 km/ h, and is one of the fastest, most dangerous and most professional events in the Winter Olympics. After the start of the race, athletes need to sit on the sled composed of 2 solid blades, 2 sled blades, seat plates and 2 bridges, and after pushing back with both arms to start running, quickly lie on the sled and start to glide, and strive to cross the corner in the shortest possible time, maintain the steady momentum of speed and decline, and cross the finish line as much as possible.

The reason why the sled is called the most dangerous item is not only that it is extremely fast, but also because of its most "self-liberating" driving method. The sled driven by the athletes not only has no rudder plate in the front, but also has no brake brakes at the rear, and the entire taxiing process can only rely on the athletes to pull the sled belt with one hand and use the change of body posture to operate the sled. In the meantime, there are 11 to 18 curves such as left and right turns, sharp turns, S-shaped bends and maze bends, and the slope drop is 100 to 150 meters, which can be described as a game for the truly brave.

The initial bobsleigh race was played on normal ice, with athletes often sliding off the track while driving. To reduce risk, the bobsleigh track has now been designed in a U-shape with parapets above 50 cm on either side to ensure that athletes do not deviate from the center while lying down to "drive" the sled. Although the risk has been reduced, accidents have occurred many times. On February 6, 2016, a sledding accident in Calgary, Canada, killed 2 people and injured 6 people. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Georgian bobsledgeist Nordar Kumaritashweli was accidentally killed in a training session on the toboggan track at the Whistler Bobsleigh Speed Skating Centre, which colored the entire Winter Olympics with sadness.

However, the shadow of the accident did not prevent athletes from pursuing faster pace in bobsleigh events. Throughout the course of the project, they have always done everything possible to increase speed, such as wearing gloves with nails stitched to enhance friction to make better force when slipping, etc. Since the temperature of the ski knife also affects the speed, in the past, there were people who tried to increase the temperature of the steel knife to further increase the speed. To this end, the International Bobsleigh Federation has made a change to the rules, prohibiting the use of heating devices and checking the temperature of the sled before departure.

Since the weight of the sled also affects the speed, the International Bobsleigh Federation also has strict limits on the weight of the sled. The weight of the single sled is limited to 20 kg, while the weight of the double sled cannot exceed 22 kg, and once overweight it will be disqualified. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, after the first round of women's bobsleigh, Japan's Fumiya Yasuda was checked out for overweight and eventually disqualified.

Because of the dangerous and professional nature of the project, bobsleigh competitions are also extremely demanding on the competition venue. At present, there are only 17 standard bobsleigh venues in the world, distributed in 11 countries (regions), of which 10 are located in Europe, and the National Bobsleigh Center in Yanqing is the first standard bobsleigh venue in mainland China. Known as the "Snow Dragon", the men's track is about 1582 meters long, the women's line is about 1475 meters long, the maximum width is 1.5 meters, the slope difference of the track is 121 meters, and it is composed of 16 curves with different angles and shapes.

The Beijing Winter Olympic Bobsleigh Competition held at the "Snow Tour Dragon" has a total of 4 sub-events: men's single sled, women's single sled, double bobsleigh and bobsleigh team relay. The single event is skied 4 times, the double event is skated twice, and the relay event requires the completion of the men's singles, women's singles and doubles events. In relay races, there is a relay board above the finish line, and the athlete needs to sit up and beat the bullet board before passing the finish line, so as to open the starting baffle at the starting point. All events are ranked by the total time spent per coast.

The German team is the deserving king of bobsleigh today. Natalie Geisenberg is the "double champion" of the women's single bobsleigh at the Sochi and Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Felix Loch has also won the men's single bobsleigh gold medal at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the Sochi Winter Olympics; and in the double bobsleigh, Tobias Wendel and Tobias Alter won the Sochi and Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. They will all compete in this year's Beijing Winter Olympics. In addition, the Austrian team with the Grescher brothers, and the Latvian team with Kristalls Apaljod, will also strive for the gold medal in the bobsleigh event in Yanqing.

Sledding is not the strength of winter sports in mainland China, but since 2015, when it selected cross-discipline athletes from scratch to form an overseas training team, to the completion of the goal of participating in the whole project of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese bobsleigh team has only spent 6 years, and its strength has grown rapidly. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese team will send men's singles player Fan Duoyao, women's singles player Wang Peixuan, and duo Huang Yebo/Peng Junyue to participate, and in addition to participating in individual competitions, they will also form a team to participate in the team relay competition. Although it is the first time to participate in the Winter Olympics, who can say with certainty that in this 0.001 seconds to decide who can "lie and win", Chinese athletes have no chance to stand on the podium?