Medals
| Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 5 | 6 |
Skeleton
Photo by LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images
Men
Women
What's this sport all about:
The athletes will be sliding a distance of 1,376 metres and going through 16 curves.
The temperature of the runners on the sled is very important. Athletes could cheat by heating them up and go faster, so they take the temperature of the runners before each race to make sure it matches, within 4°C, the temperature of a reference runner.
The only way to steer a skeleton sled is with slight head, shoulder or body movements.
There is a maximum weight that athletes and sleds combined can weigh: 92 kilograms for women and 115 kilograms for men.
Canada won their first medals in skeleton in Turin in 2006 — a bronze, a silver and a gold.
When to watch
of events:
of events:
Our Canadian Athletes
Things to watch for
Alexander Kefalas of Greece at Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Spiked Shoes: Shoes worn by skeleton athletes have about 300 very thin spikes on their soles to help them grip the ice as they get their running start. Compare that with shoes worn by track-and-field athletes, which have about 10 spikes.
Mellisa Hollingsworth of Canada at 2010 Vancouver With Olympics. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Watch the Feet: It’s a bad sign if an athlete’s feet are dragging — that means they are trying to slow themselves down, possibly to avoid flying off the track in upcoming turns.
Ben Sandford of New Zealand at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
The Inside Line: Making good turns are important to getting down the track quickly, so athletes try to stay to the inside of a curve — hitting a curve at the outside could make them go too high.
