A rare Russian fairy tale, which takes place in winter, dispenses with the old folk amusement - sledding down the ice slide. In the 20th century, this traditional entertainment turned into a professional winter discipline. And 50 years ago, luge sports became part of the Olympic program. Replacing it with another sledging discipline - the skeleton.
Instructions
Step 1
The idle or solemn riding on wooden sled carriages with iron runners, which had existed for a long time, began to turn into a sport around the middle of the 19th century. Its founders were several unnamed Britons, who decided to go down one of the Alpine slides on a sled.
Step 2
By the way, the Alps, especially the German and Austrian ones, where the unofficial arrival of a group of English gentlemen took place, eventually turned into a real Mecca for sledges. Even the first Olympic competition, which took place half a century ago, took place on an alpine track in Innsbruck, Austria.
Step 3
In professional parlance, luge means "downhill competition in a single or double sled on a pre-paved ice track." In 2014, another type appeared - the team relay. Participants of the races lie on their backs and feet forward, and this is the main difference between a sled and a related skeleton. In it, the athlete rides along the chute head first and face down.
Step 4
The sled is controlled only with the help of certain body movements. Or, in the case of a pair race, two bodies that change the trajectory of the descent. This apparent simplicity is often even the subject of jokes. For example, the track in Olympic Sochi is named rather frivolously for a professional sports facility - "Sanki".
Step 5
Tobogganing got into the official Olympic program relatively recently - in 1964. Replacing, thanks to the goodwill of the International Olympic Committee, the "sister" skeleton. But the debut holiday turned out to be rather sad. On the eve of the first race, one of the athletes, the Briton Kazimierz Kej-Skrzypeski, crashed on the Alpine bobsleigh track.
Step 6
The Austrian Bert Isatish, the president of the International Luge Federation, managed to defend his form again not without difficulty. The first champion in Innsbruck-64 was the representative of Germany Thomas Keller. The situation did not change much in the next half century. Most of the Olympic medals in sleds are still won by representatives of the Alpine countries - Germany, Austria and Italy.
Step 7
Soviet athletes-luge won the first and only gold in 1980 in Lake Placid. Vera Zozulya from Riga became the Olympic champion then. In Russia, this sport began to develop in 1910. The Russian Olympians made their debut as a separate team in 1994. The most titled among domestic masters of luge sports is the owner of three Olympic silver medals (2006, 2014) Albert Demchenko.
Step 8
As for the skeleton, which at first lost its Olympic place to the sleigh, and later returned to the Games program, he began his journey into big sport in 1892. It was then that an Englishman named Child designed a sports sled, later called a "skeleton".
Step 9
Competition No. 1 in extreme descent from the mountain upside down was held in 1905 in Austria. 23 years later, the skeleton made its debut at the II Winter Olympics in St. Moritz. The first champion was American Jennison Heaton, who was ahead of his brother John as well.
Step 10
It is curious that the skeletonists held the second Olympic tournament in 1948, and again in St. Moritz. A decade and a half later, the skeleton was expelled from the Olympic "family". His place at the 64 Olympics was given to luge sports. Finally, at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, the second Olympic comeback took place. Perhaps the final one.
