nt steering mechanisms, and all the other improvements. The English writers from 1894 do acknowledge that some Americans had brought a metal-runner sled, which became known as the “America,” but the names of those Americans are not always the same. This is also right around the time of the invention of the Flexible Flyer sled in Philadelphia, so it seems clear that the United States and its wealthy tourists were involved in the speed improvements.
One of the authors, Gibson, was sort of scornful of the New World sledders, despite their technological skill and the fact that the word “toboggan” came from natives of North America. “It is only fair to add,” he writes, “that I have met Canadians whose idea of real tobogganing was to start from the top of any convenient mountain and slide forthwith to the bottom, if Providence were kind enough not to stop progress on the way.”
The Cresta Run was initially a sledding run, but it became so popular that it soon changed. Cook writes: “Machines going at an ever-increasing rapidity were found to wear away the banks too fast; little by little the run became not merely iced but actual ice.” And that meant more speed and consistency. Soon all sled runs were constructed of ice, which was celebrated by speed junkies, and mourned by those who noted that a hilarious spill into pillowy snow is more fun than a crash on unforgiving ice.
All sorts of sled-type sports were created in these resort towns. Skeleton, which is essentially head-first luge, was just one possible way of riding a toboggan at the Cresta Run: Some sat upright, some weirdly lay on their sides, and some led with their heads. Bobsled, or bobsleigh, came about when one competitor showed up with two regular sleds hammered together to make a super-sled. Skeleton, bobsled, and luge evolved, within a few years, into separate disciplines.
The sport gained further popularity, as rich men (and some women) from all over Europe, North America, and even Australia began showing up at St. Moritz, Davos, and what became a host of other alpine ski resorts. In 1913, the first international federation of sled sports was founded. Others followed.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is in charge of deciding which sports will be held in each Games. Skateboarding and surfing made the cut in 2020 for the first time. Croquet and tug-of-war are former fixtures that have been discarded. The IOC also happens to be located, since 1915, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 1923, a larger and more ambitious organization called the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing was founded in, you guessed it, Lausanne. They immediately started petitioning to have their sports added to the Winter Olympics, which held its first event in 1924. The four-man bobsled was part of that inaugural Games in Chamonix, France, and has been part of the Winter Olympics ever since—well, except for the 1960 Games, when local officials in Squaw Valley, California, decided it was too expensive to build a bobsled course and so just … didn’t.
Skeleton debuted in 1928, but was dropped until 1948, and then dropped again until 2002. Some sources chalk this up to the danger of the sport, but it seems equally or more likely due to the sport’s limited popularity. The two Games it had been featured in, 1928 and 1948, were both in St. Moritz and used the original Cresta Run, sort of an ode to the town’s contribution to winter sports, but this particular sled sport might have been considered too niche to be featured in Sapporo or Lake Placid or Sarajevo.
By the late 1950s, luge had surpassed skeleton in popularity and had its own organizing group, the Fédération Internationale de Luge de Course. It was scheduled to debut in 1960, but then Squaw Valley again, so it ended up making its first appearance in 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria. The Germans dominated that year.
Luge has been a fixture of the Winter Olympics ever since, and Germany a fixture on the medal podium, having produced nine of the top 10 medal winners. And this year, 2022, is the first Olympic luge without a single 