Arguably one of the most popular spectator events in the Winter Olympics, Bobsleigh or otherwise known as Bobsled or Alex was invented by Englishmen in the late 1860’s. During the Vancouver Winter Olympics the bobsledding event will have many eyes focused on it. The Bobsleigh events have been a part of the Winter Olympics since 1924, with the exception of the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley where the Olympic committee decided to cut their budget and they did not build a track for the competition to take place on. That being said, the four man bobsled competition has been contested in every Winter Olympics, in fact during the 1928 Winter Olympics the bobsleigh was a five man event. The two man bobsleigh competition was introduced to the Olympic games in 1932. The first two women event took place during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

At the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics there will be three sliding events contested, the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. This idea of running sleds down steep, twisting tracks of ice came about over 150 years ago. Today the bobsleigh is built to be extremely fast and very aerodynamic. The modern bobsleigh is built out of rounded fiberglass and has four highly-polished steel runners. The start of any of the bobsleigh events involves the competitors pushing off as fast as they can (sprinting) for roughly 50 metres, they then jump into the bobsled and begin their descent down the track. In this particular event the driver will steer the sled down the track and once the team competing has completed its run the brakeman slows the bobsled to a stop. During the Vancouver Olympics there will be three different bobsleigh events contested:

For all of these Olympic events there will be four separate heats held over two days, with the winner’s being awarded the medals for the fastest overall combined time.

During the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 the sliding events will be contested in Whistler, British Columbia a short, very scenic two hour drive from downtown Vancouver. The Whistler Sliding Center venue is situated on the famed Blackomb Mountain where there are a number of other action adventure sports in the area. The venue capacity for the sliding events will accommodate 12,000 spectators, with one of the highest vertical drops on the track being 152 metres in length. This will surely provide for an enormous amount of excitement watching these events during the Vancouver Olympics.

The construction of the brand new Whistler Sliding Center began in June of 2005; the track was complete and fully operational during the winter of 2007-2008. The actual public opening of the venue took place in the fall of 2008.

Once the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are complete, the Whistler Sliding Center will be run and operated by the Whistler Legacies Society. The sliding center will host a number of International competitions and will help in the future development of all sliding sports in and around the local community for years to come. With the location of the sliding center being close to many of the resorts world class hotels it will attract many tourists for evermore, providing a steady sustainable revenue stream for the sliding centers long-term operations.

The overall cost for the Whistler Sliding Center came in at $104.9 million and was funded in a joint effort by the government of Canada and British Columbia.

Here is a list of the ‘Sustainable Attributes’ for this venue as presented by VANOC (Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Committee)

The Whistler Sliding Center venue features a brand new 1,450 metre competition length concrete sliding track, new refrigeration units, a support building as well as access roads. Over the 13 days of Olympic sliding competitions, the athletes will be competing for a total of 8 Olympic medals.