Tracks
For more details on this topic, see List of bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton tracks.Modern tracks are made of concrete, coated with ice. They are required to have at least one straight section and one labyrinth (three turns in quick succession without a straight section). Ideally, a modern track should be 1200 to 1300 meters long and have at least fifteen curves. Speeds may exceed 120 km/h, and some curves can subject the crews to as much as 5 g.
Some bobsleigh tracks are also used for luge and skeleton competition.
Some tracks offer tourists rides in bobsleighs, including those at Sigulda, Latvia; Innsbruck-Igls, Austria; Calgary, Canada; Whistler, Canada; Lillehammer, Norway; Cesana Pariol, Italy; Lake Placid, USA; Salt Lake City, USA and La Plagne, France.
The most famous of all the turns is the 'Petersen'. The Petersen is renowned for its trademark 180 degree turn and 270 degree bank angle, which is a compulsory feature on all Winter Olympic runs. The Petersen is named after the pioneer track designer Heidi Petersen.
Read more about this topic: Bobsleigh
Famous quotes containing the word tracks:
“I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“The tracks of moose, more or less recent, to speak literally, covered every square rod on the sides of the mountain; and these animals are probably more numerous there now than ever before, being driven into this wilderness, from all sides, by the settlements.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)