What to know about bobsled at the Winter Olympics: The Germans vs. everyone else

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The biggest rivalry going into the bobsled competition at the Milan Cortina Olympics is pretty much not in dispute.

On one side, there is Germany. And on the other side, there is everybody else.

The sport made its Olympic debut in 1924 and Germany didn't win its first gold medals until 1952. But the country, including the days of both East Germany and West Germany, has dominated like no other, with 22 gold medals since 1952 and rest of the world combining for 21 golds in that span.

There are four types of bobsled races: two-man, four-man, two-woman and monobob, which has just one female pilot in the sled and nobody else. All sleds have one driver, and the person in the back of the sled is considered the brakeman; his or her role is exactly as it sounds, to pull the brakes once the sled has crossed the finish line. Races start with everyone running either alongside or behind the sled, down a ramp before they jump into the sled. For aerodynamic reasons, everyone’s head should stay down during a race (except the driver, of course). Speeds can reach 90 mph (145 kmh).

Germans tend to dominate sliding, and four-time Olympic gold medalist Francesco Friedrich is generally considered the best bobsledder of all time. He will face intense competition from German teammate Johannes Lochner on the men’s side, where American pilot Frank Del Duca will try to crash the medal party. For the women, U.S. star Kaysha Love is the reigning world monobob champion, while veterans Kaillie Humphries Armbruster (three gold medals) and Elana Meyers Taylor (five medals) are never to be counted out. Germany’s women are very strong as well.

Competition in bobsled is from Feb. 15-22, all at the Cortina Sliding Center on the remodeled Eugenio Monti track.

For USA Bobsled, the quintessential Olympic moment likely remains the four-man bobsled gold medal by Steven Holcomb in the famed “Night Train” sled at the 2010 Vancouver Games, when he and his team ended a 62-year drought for the Americans in the sport’s biggest race. There also is the unforgettable, made-for-the-movies tale of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary when they bucked overwhelming odds and competed in the two- and four-man events. Jamaica still has a bobsled team as well, and plenty of other smaller nations — even those that never see snow — have embraced the sport more and more since.

Friedrich will try to become the first pilot with more than four gold medals; he’s currently tied with another German great, Andre Lange, for the most in Olympic history. If a team crashes, it remains in the competition provided that the sled actually crosses the finish line. Unlike skaters, who have blades on their feet, bobsleds don’t have anything sharp on the bottom of the sleds. They glide on runners, which are steel tubes.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics