Skeleton racing involves plummeting head-first down a steep and treacherous ice track on a tiny sled. It is considered the world's first sliding sport.
Thrill-seeking tourists
Sleighing is one of the oldest winter sports. Descriptions of the sport can be found in 16th-century literature, but as a racing sport it can be traced to the mid-19th century, when British tourists started sliding down snowbound roads in the Alps. British and American holidaymakers built the first toboggan run in Davos in 1882.
The Cresta run
Skeleton sled racing owes it entire early history to St Moritz and the famed Cresta Run. The sport developed in the Swiss resort town as a pursuit for the rich. E. F. Benson put it best when he wrote in 1913, “There is one Mecca, there is one St Peter's, and there is one Cresta.”
Olympic history
Men’s skeleton made two early appearances on the Olympic programme at its “ancestral” home of St. Moritz in 1928 and 1948. It was then dropped until it reappeared as a men’s and women’s event at Salt Lake City in 2002.
