For the second year, the Whistler Sliding Centre will host an FIBT Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Cup event, with three days of racing on the schedule from Feb. 2 to 4.
The Whistler event is the seventh on the circuit, and will be followed by the eighth event in Calgary the next weekend. After that the season wraps up with the world championships at Lake Placid on Feb.26.
Having the world championships in North America this year ensures that all the top bobsleigh teams and skeleton athletes will be here, while last year some teams opted to skip the season opener in Whistler and race a European Cup event instead.
Thursday's events are the women's skeleton and women's bobsleigh, with the skeleton athletes kicking things off at 3 p.m. and the bobsleigh races at 6:30 p.m.
The men's skeleton is at 3 p.m. on Friday, followed by the men's two-man bobsleigh at 6:30 p.m. The four-man bobsleigh races are at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Tickets are available at www.whistler.com/olympics/sliding_centre for $10, or free for kids six and under. You can also get tickets at the Whistler Activity Centre and some tickets will be available on race day at the base of the Excalibur Gondola.
Here's what you need to know:
How are the Canadians doing?
The skeleton team is missing Olympic champion Jon Montgomery, who took the season off competition to prepare for the 2014 Games. Melissa Hollingsworth is having a great season on the women's side and at press time was ranked fifth in the world. She's been on the podium three times this season, including one win and two bronze medals. Before last weekend she was in first by a few points, but a 16th place finish at St. Moritz bumped her back.
Amy Gough is one spot back of Hollingsworth in sixth place and has one gold medal to her credit. Sarah Reid is 12th and has posted a few personal bests this year — including a career-best fifth place result.
In the men's skeleton Michael Douglas has been holding down the fort and is ranked 11th, with teammate John Fairbairn in 13th and Eric Neilson in 14th.
In bobsleigh, Canada's season took a wrong turn at Altenberg, Germany with the Canada 2 four-man bobsleigh piloted by World Cup rookie Chris Spring crashing in training, resulting in serious injuries to three athletes. The Canada 1 sled was pulled from the competition the next day over safety concerns.
The women's bobsleigh team has been the highlight this season with Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries finding her groove with new partner Emily Baadsvik and coming on strong. The team has now been on the podium three times this season, including a gold, silver and bronze.
In men's two-man, Lyndon Rush and partner Jesse Lumsden have clicked and have two podiums to their credit. Rush likes the Whistler Sliding Centre track and has had good success here — including a bronze medal in the Olympic four-man race and a silver medal for the FIBT event in Whistler in the 2010-2011 World Cup season.
How fast are they going?
Fast. The skeleton discipline tends to the slowest of the three sliding sports, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge, but it's also the roughest — athletes can hit the walls pretty hard and there are no real edges on a sled to help you steer. You also can't see much other than a grey blur of ice, and you have to know the tracks by heart.
The athletes get underway with a running start, but that's not enough to win — failing to steer properly will get you thrown into walls where you'll lose all of your speed.
At the Whistler Sliding Centre, recognized as the fastest track in the world, Olympic champion Jon Montgomery has the course record and has posted speeds of 146km/h on the track — if you can consider that slow.
The top four-man bobsleigh speeds are approaching 154km/h, which is about 20km/h faster than the designers planned for the track and only slightly slower than the fastest luge times. The top two-man and women's teams are well over 140km/h.
How do you win?
Both skeleton and bobsleigh put a lot of emphasis on fast starts, but it's not the only piece of the puzzle. Skeleton athletes start with one hand on their sled and sprint out of the gate, with about 10 metres, before the jump on, stomach down, head first. Athletes steer by applying pressure with their shoulder and knees, while fighting G forces pressing down on their legs and backs of their heads. Holding the proper form and steering the fastest line is key to winning, as is your sled set-up.
Sled design and weight is more or less mandated by the FIBT, but athletes have some leeway adding ballast if their combined weight is on the low side, and they can do a few adjustments to the alignment of the skids as well.
In bobsleigh, two or four athletes push the sled from the start and hop in, retracting their push bars. A two-person bobsleigh weighs up to 390kg (314kg for women) and a four-man bobsleigh 630kg, which is why bobsleigh selects athletes that are big and strong, and have explosive speed off a start line. Several athletes, like Jesse Lumsden, are recruited from professional football.
It also doesn't hurt to have extra ballast in the toboggan, and most men in the spot weigh over 95kg (200 pounds).
The driver or pilot of a bobsleigh has decent visibility from the front seat and can steer the sled using the front runners. Good steering and split-second decisions can win a race, even if the start was not the fastest.
Where's the best place to watch?
Most spectators are partial to Thunderbird, the long sweeping corner at the bottom of the track where sleds are moving the fastest before heading uphill to the finish. It's also the shortest walk, and has pretty easy access to the finish to watch the medal ceremonies. There's also a screen where spectators can watch the run up until the point that athletes round that final curve.
