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Many Winter Olympic sports ancient originsIt dates back to times when people were discovering new ways to navigate the harsh, white wilderness. Skiing may have first appeared 10,000 years ago. Altai, Chinaand the Native Sámi word for ski (“cuoigat”) It is estimated to be between 6,000 and 8,000 years old. Thousands of years ago in northern Europe, people relied. animal bones at your feet to glide on the ice. And the First Peoples of Canada used sleds to transport goods.

The so-called skeleton sport, although technically performed on a sled, does not have such a sacred origin in the practical transport of people or goods. Without central heating, life was hard enough; There was no reason to descend face-to-face through a frozen channel on an unbraked sled.

Yet, for all of the skeleton’s modernity—it was reintroduced into the Winter Olympics program only in 2002—scientists are still deeply confused.

Other gliding sports provide clearer paths to victory. Bobsled drivers steer by pulling two pieces of string attached to a steering bolt. Lugers guide by flexing the calf muscles and grasping the arms of the sled. But skeleton racers can guide themselves with only the most subtle shrug or footwork. The slightest twitch can help or harm, altering the athlete’s aerodynamics in ways that athletes, coaches, and researchers are still trying to figure out.

“There are even times when I use my eyes,” said Katie Tannenbaum, a skeleton athlete from the Virgin Islands. He told The Times in 2018.

The skeleton was invented with some enthusiasm, according to the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation. The sport originated in Switzerland’s St. Moritz on the Cresta Run, an icy outdoor track used for tobogganing, when recreational sledges began to fall headfirst. And while the name “skeleton” fits a sport that seems like a direct invitation to death, its origins are obscure; It may have originated from a poorly Anglicised Norwegian word or the sparse, skeletal appearance of the steel sled. The sport originated in the Olympics. 1928 and 1948games When it was done in Moritz.

The physics of gliding sports – skeleton, sled, and toboggan – are simple. “It’s gravity that pulls you off the rail,” said Timothy Wei, a mechanical engineer specializing in fluid dynamics at Northwestern University who works with skeletal athletes. “And all the drag forces are slowing you down.”

Most of the sparse, non-proprietary research on the skeleton relates to the sprint phase of the sport, in which athletes run to generate speed while pushing their sleds a short distance before jumping aboard. Scientists have investigated ideal number of steps, ideal stride length and frequency and even ideal angles hips, knees, ankles and thighs during the running phase. But scientists know much less about the mechanics of the more frightening stage of the skeleton.

There are many reasons.

slip physically brutal: Athletes rely on four to five G-forces during turns and must withstand the jarring vibrations of the track. In sled, athletes wear a neck strap to keep their heads under high G-forces; Seated bobsleigh athletes are surrounded by their vehicles. In skeleton, athletes experience the elements face-to-face for the first time, all while keeping their heads down to stay aerodynamic, their chins hovering just inches above the hard ice and their eyes stretched upward to visualize the runway.

Dr. “You can’t do more than two to three runs a day,” Wei said. “And at the end of the season, you can’t think clearly for a month or two.” So while a runner can practice running whenever they want, a skeleton athlete can only skeleton for a few hours a year, if so; With few opportunities for testing, examining skeleton runs is logistically difficult.

It’s not easy to go to a track to train. The International Toboggan and Skeleton Federation lists only 17 trails worldwide, all located in the Northern Hemisphere. This creates privilege economic and environmental barriers For sliders from other countries hoping to train, let alone participate in the Olympics.

And tracks are often snaking around like roller coasters, making it difficult to keep an eye on an athlete as they sprint down the track. The track at Yanqing National Gliding Center in Beijing, also called the “Snow Dragon,” has a 360-degree turn. Dr. In Wei’s experience, watching a race means “watching these guys run fast and disappear into a tunnel and disappear.” “There is no way to know exactly what the athlete is doing during the entire course and to get data from him,” he added.

But in a race where margins of victory are typically a few hundredths of a second, it is crucial for athletes to understand the aerodynamic forces that slow their glide in order to minimize them. When facing the ice, it can be difficult to know whether changing the position of your feet or gliding up or down the sled really takes up valuable time.

Enter the humble wind tunnel. More than ten years ago, Dr. Wei set up a system. simulated drag resistance what athletes experience in a real skeleton run. At the exit of an open wind tunnel, he built a mock section of a runway with sensors embedded in the ground and mounted a false skid near it. The sensors tracked the athletes’ frictional forces and weight distribution.

Athletes rode a mock sled, braced themselves against the wind, and could see in real time how small adjustments in their bodies affected their speed through a Plexiglas window at the bottom of the tunnel.

Dr. Wei also conducted tests using a theater fog machine and illuminated with a green layer of laser light. He tracked the movement of fog particles to reveal how the air swirled over the athletes’ bodies and heads, in hopes of gaining insight into other ways to reduce friction.

Preparing to compete for the Virgin Islands this week, Ms. Tannenbaum met with Dr. He worked with Wei’s wind tunnel. (There are no bobsleigh tracks in the US Virgin Islands.) “Where does friction come from?” Dr. Wei wondered. “How much of it from the sled itself, how much from Katie?”

A wind tunnel cannot replicate the surprises of a real track, where certain elements – small bumps in the ice, wind conditions, outside temperature – will always be beyond the athlete’s control.

Compared to other gliding sports, part of the beauty of the skeleton may be that it asks athletes to relinquish complete control over their fate on the ice.

Dr. “While it may seem completely crazy, paradoxically it’s the safest of gliding sports because you have very little steering control,” Wei said. Excessive steering in these sports can often result in an accident. Sledding, with speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, is considered one of the most dangerous sports in the Olympic Games.

The most aerodynamic skeleton racer would be a real skeleton, not a fleshy human—the wind would whistle from his ribcage, Dr. Wei added that a real skeleton cannot steer.

Until the Olympics open to the undead, skeletal sport remains in the domain of the living. And although athletes may seem as motionless as corpses, there is nothing more determined than to cling to a steel plank and repeatedly slide toward the center of the Earth at 80 miles per hour.