Sport
The accessibility of skeleton to amateurs may have been the catalyst for its upswing in popularity. Most notably, Nino Bibbia, a fruit and vegetable merchant from St. Moritz, took Olympic gold at the 1948 event. With the advent of the first artificially refrigerated track in 1969 at Königssee/Berchtesgaden, Germany, athletes are currently able to practice the sport regardless of weather conditions. The sport is also promoted by skeleton officials as a gateway sport to “train young, aspiring athletes…for their future career in bobsleigh.”
The major competitions of non-Olympic seasons include the World Championships and World Cups, held annually. The rankings and results from these competitions determine the starting positions for future races. The track becomes less smooth after each successive run; thus, the negative effect on run times makes earlier starts in the lineup more desirable. Based on the overall performance of a country, the FIBT determines which countries may participate in the Olympic games. For the male competition, the best 12 nations based on World Cup rankings may participate, whereas for ladies, the best 8 may do so.
Read more about this topic: Skeleton (sport)
Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“What sport shall we devise here in this garden
To drive away the heavy thought of care?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
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—George Orwell (1903–1950)