Silver medal winner Jeff Pain of Canada competes in the Mens Skeleton Single Final during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games in Cesana Pariol, Italy. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) While skeleton will be new to most us, an earlier version of the event actually made Olympic appearances in 1928 and 1948. In fact, it's actually the oldest sliding event, a true forerunner of the better-known bobsleigh and luge.
Modern skeleton sliding is an adaptation of cresta, which itself evolved from traditional tobogganing. The first run was built by a group of English tourists in 1884 in St. Moritz, Switzerland in the Cresta Valley — hence the name of both the sport and the run.
The original Cresta Run was a modified toboggan run with curves and tight corners added to liven things up. It stretched about one kilometre and with a vertical drop of about 150 metres. By 1885, the first major competition, The Grand National, was held on the run.
The "skeleton" sled derives its name from the creation of a tinkering Englishman, who built a metal sled with runners and a ribbed frame which, of course, resembled a skeleton.
Early competitors rode seated or on their backs, but that changed when a competitor who went down headfirst clocked much quicker times. Soon all Grand National sliders were leading with their faces.
Skeleton spread to Germany and Austria in the early 20th century, but by the 1920s it was again practiced only in St. Moritz. The Swiss resort town played host to the Winter Games in 1928, when skeleton made its Olympic debut. American Jennison Heaton captured the first gold medal, his brother John took the silver, and Britain's Earl of Northesk earned the bronze.
Skeleton was promptly dropped from the Winter Olympic slate, but when the Games returned to St. Moritz, so did skeleton as an official event. Italian Nino Bibbia, a newcomer to the sport, captured gold, while John Heaton, now 39 years old, returned to St. Moritz to win another silver.
Interest surged again when the first multi-use, refrigerated bobsleigh tracks were built in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the traditional skeleton sled was modernized for the new tracks. The sport came to North America in the 1980s after bobsleigh runs were built for Olympic competitions in Lake Placid, New York and Calgary.
A Canadian world champion
Skeleton gold medalist Canada's Duff Gibson celebrates on the podium during a 2006 Winter Olympics medals ceremony in Turin, Italy. (Jean-Pierre Clatot/AFP/Getty Images)The first world championship was held in 1987 with seven nations participating. Europeans dominated the sport until the mid-1990s, by which time more than 20 countries were competing. At that time, Canada's Ryan Davenport emerged as one of the world's best sliders, capturing the world championship in 1996 and 1997.
Davenport retired in 1999 to concentrate on coaching and sled-making. The skeleton may not have returned to the Olympics in time for Davenport to compete for medals, but many of the world's top sliders now use his creations.
The first internationally sanctioned women's competition took place in 1996, and the first women's world championship was held in 2000.
In 2006, Olympic spectators were thrilled with the daring sport in Turin, Italy. The event was considered a great success for Canadian skeleton athletes.
At 39, Duff Gibson became the oldest Canadian winter gold medallist, narrowly beating out his teammate, Jeff Pain.
Melissa Hollingsworth-Richards, a cousin of Davenport, earned a bronze during the women’s competition.
