2010 Olympics: Skeleton Preview

There isn’t really much to this sport. You get the fastest combined time and you win. Skeleton is pretty much like bobsleigh and luge where you are basically sled riding down an icy slope in order to get the fastest time. The difference with the skeleton is that the sled is literally shaped like a human body, hence the name skeleton. The athletes start by running to start and then finding the right groves to race in, must like when you were a kid and you wanted to hit the lane that was already made by your friend before.

Men’s
Women’s

Overview

You steer your skeleton sled by just shifting your body weight as you lye on your stomach. Each event (men’s and women’s) consist of four heats held over two days and the lowest combined times win.

U.S. Hopefuls

The U.S. will probably not hang their hat on their skeleton teams as they don’t look to really figure in to any serious medal contention for either the men’s or the women’s field. Eric Bernotas, Zach Lund and John Daly will compete for the men and Katie Uhlaender will compete for the women.

Predictions

Three Rivers Blog – For the women Mellisa Hollingsworth is the top ranked skeleton competitor in the World Cup circuit and she is a Canadian so you know for sure she will put her best foot forward for this one. For the men, I am going a little deeper in the pool and going with German Sandro Stielicke to win. He has some good performances in the World Cup and it should translate in Vancouver.

The Steelers n’at – Skeleton is all about guts. Do you have the guts to lay with your face 2 inches from the ice while rocketing down a chute? Unlike Luge, I feel like Skeleton requires a bit less technical skill. With the games in their home country, we’re going to take Canadians to sweep gold here with Hollingsworth and Jon Montgomery bringing home the Canadian Bacon.