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First sleds are built
In the late 19th century, Caspar Badrutt, a hotel manager, convinced some rich English people to stay at his hotel during winter. This hotel is located in Saint Moritz, Switzerland.
In the next few years, his hotel became popular, making some people search for other types of entertainment.
Some English people adapted delivery sleds to ride them. -
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Bobsleigh
Bobsleigh is a really challenging sport that can involve teams of 2 or 4 people. The aim of the sport is to cross a long ice track without crashing in the shortest time possible.
A lot of teams can compete. The team with the lowest time wins the race. -
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Origins
Shortly after it's origins, bobsleigh quickly started to develop, reaching a wide audience to try and compete in this sport.
Reaching the Winter Olympic Games, Bobsleigh was a very well-known sport, but it still had much to develop. -
Bobsleigh is banned from public highways
When the guests started colliding against people, they developed a steer function for the sleds.
The typical sled was then formed by 2 skeleton sleds (individual, small sleds) and a steering function at the front.
In the late 19th century, due to complaints about collisions, local people in Saint Moritz decided to ban sledding from public roads and highways. -
Cresta Run is built
As sleds were banned from public highways, Badrutt built a track for the guests to use their sleds freely.
It is known as Cresta Run, and surprisingly, it's still in use nowadays, but just for skeleton. -
Competition begins
In Cresta Run, some competitions began, the first ones in the world. -
First Organized Competition
Again, in Cresta Run, this competition was formed by teams of 5 people each, 2 of them women. -
IBSF is founded
The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation is founded.
It's the governing body of Bobsleigh and Skeleton, another sport similar to Bobsleigh. -
Bobsleigh is part of the Winter Olympic Games
Bobsleigh was featured in the 1924 Winter Olympic Games in 4 man bobsleigh modality. In fact, these were the first ever Winter Olympic Games in history.
A total of 39 teams participated, from 5 countries: Italy, Switzerland, France, UK and Belgium. -
Bobsleigh World Championships
The IBSF World Championships for Bobsleigh and Skeleton are founded.
It has taken place every year from 1930 except in Winter Olympic Years (from 2002).
Germany is said to be the most successful country in these Championships. -
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Modern times
Bobsleigh has developed a lot. Sleds now have more functions, tracks are improved, more people are willing to compete, even people want to try bobsledding just for fun! -
Women competition starts
2 races were made in February and March of 1983 in the US. -
Women's category appears in the World Championships
2 women modality is contested for the first time at the 2000 World Championships. Women's monobob would be introduced later on, in 2021. -
Women's category appears at the Winter Olympic Games
2 women bobsled is featured in the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.
This modality has been featured in every Winter Olympic Games edition ever since. -
Monobob category appears
Monobob is a bobsleigh modality that was origined for younger people that don't have enough power to carry a bigger sled. It's a sled for only 1 person.
The first Olympic competition was in the 2016 Youth Winter Olympic Games.
It was a category in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games but just for women, so that there would be 2 modalities for each gender.