Take the initiative to cultivate opponents for yourself, why is the sleigh "dream team" Germany so strong?

Reporter | Liu Zixiang

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With the end of the team relay race on the evening of the 10th, the gold medals in the bobsleigh event of this Winter Olympics have all landed. As expected before the game, the German "Dream Team" once again showed its strength, winning gold medals in all 4 minor events.

In bobsleigh, Germany is a regular on the podium. Since bobsleigh became an Olympic sport in 1964, Germany has won 78 medals by the time of the Beijing Winter Olympics, 30 more than all other countries combined.

Also known as "Ice F1", bobsleigh began on natural ice in Switzerland and has now developed into a high-tech sport on artificial circuits. Of the three winter Olympics, the sledding was the fastest. Athletes can reach more than 140 kilometers per hour in the race, and there is no brake, only relying on the athlete to use the body to subtly control, which has a certain danger.

It is also a "difference of a millimeter, a thousand miles lost" competition, and the final result is measured accurately to one thousandth of a second. At this level, the competition is not so much an individual race as a technology race. As for the "secret weapon" of the sled used in the competition, some German players are not even willing to share it with their teammates.

Backed by a number of strong car companies, German bobsleigh sports have been blessed with science and technology. According to the German newspaper Bild, as early as 2016, BMW used the most advanced measurement and analysis technology on the F1 track for the bobsleigh track, using racing sensors to measure the acceleration of the sled, angular velocity and other data.

BMW has also established the BMW-Rodel-Akademie Academy, which has several specialists specializing in research and optimization. Among them was BMW engineer Julian von Schleinitz, who himself was a junior world champion in bobsleigh racing. There's also sleigh legend Georg Hackl, as well as carbon fiber experts and sled making experts.

In the double bobsleigh final of the Beijing Winter Olympics that ended on the 9th, the German duo Wendel/Alter set a new track record and won the Olympic gold medal in the event for the third time. Their "chariot" is made by the BMW Sleigh Academy.

Before attending the Beijing Winter Olympics, Wendel told Bild: "Last season, we used Formula 1 technology to measure the sleds in every training session, and all the data was recorded and analyzed for the design and production of our Winter Olympic bobsleighs. ”

But some athletes have refused the blessing of the BMW Bobsleigh Academy. Another duo, The Benecken/Eggert duo, also has super strength, finishing second at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Despite receiving technical support, their sleds were built in their own workshops.

In an interview, Egert said that getting into the bobsleigh academy meant revealing everything about themselves and that they didn't want their competitors in the team to know too much about themselves, "We have our system, we go our own way, and we've been very successful so far." ”

Although the two teams are both part of the national team, training together and competing together, they keep each other secret in terms of sports equipment. Wendel also confirmed that he "really doesn't know why his teammates are so fast in the sled".

BMW's "Snow Dragon" track simulator designed specifically for the German team.

The technology blessing also allows German athletes to familiarize themselves with the track in Beijing in advance. Due to the epidemic, many foreign athletes cannot go to Beijing to train and familiarize themselves with the field in advance before the competition. To this end, BMW specially designed a track simulator for the German team "Snow Dragon". German bobsleigh reserve member Hannihof told Dwever that the simulated track was "very realistic", which gave them a huge advantage over other players who could not train on the spot.

In addition to the technology bonus, German officials also support sledding. In 2017, the German federal government allocated 4.6 million euros to the International Bobsleigh Federation (IFU) in 2017, specifically for athletes, excluding another million euros for material development and artificial ice rinks. Considering that the IFU has only 7,000 athletes, this money is a big expense. By comparison, the German triathlon league has eight times more athletes than the IFU, who received only €700,000 in grants from the federal government in 2017.

In terms of infrastructure, the German team also has more advantages. There are currently 17 bobsleigh tracks in the world, 4 of which are in Germany, more than any other country.

Ludwig, who won the first gold medal in the bobsleigh event for Germany, said at a press conference that they have experienced enough tracks in their usual training, as well as in domestic and European competitions, and have also made mistakes in various styles of tracks, and the continuous accumulation in the past decade has created their super adaptability.

However, it is always one country that wins the race, so what is the point of the sport? Wolfgang Harder, an IFU spokesman, told The Die Zeitung that if the same person always wins, it will always cause problems at some point in time, which will make the sport less attractive and may make sledding, an already relatively niche project, more niche.

IFU was founded in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and is headquartered in Germany. Germany is funding other countries through the IFU to develop its opponents. For example, IFU funds development assistance programs for bobsleigh enthusiasts in other non-toboggan countries, and they also volunteer to provide coaches for athletes from other countries and pay for their training in Germany.

"In sledding, a German naturally has different innate conditions than an Indian, not just about the track, but also about the coaching, the knowledge and the technique," Hard said, "we do this to have enough countries to play with us, but the premise is of course to make sure that we have a certain degree of advantage in the competition." ”

Other countries have indeed been catching up. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, although the gold medal in the men's single bobsleigh was still won by Germany, the advantage over the second-place Austrian player was "minimal". At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Canada won silver and bronze medals, the first time they have ever won a medal in the bobsleigh event. According to Die Zeitung, Germany is likely to be unable to maintain its current average of 75% of medals in the coming years.

To some extent, this may also be what they are happy to see.