The four-man U.S. bobsled team led by John Napier crashed during its first heat yesterday at the Whistler Sliding Track in Vancouver. After the sled overturned the stupid contraption ran the entire course upside-down on the team’s heads at 95 m.p.h, which made for some pretty exciting action waiting to see if anybody got creamed. (Thank God for helmets, right?)
From what I can tell, most bobsledders aren’t exactly “young” in terms of athletes ... they’re typically overweight men in their 30s without any real jobs who seriously believe horsing around like this is a sport and gives them special value as human beings. Four men dressed in Speedo wetsuits sit on top of each other in a $100,000 sled squished like sardines and shoot down a track of ice ... and three of them don’t even get to see where they’re going. My question is, if the guy in front steers the sled and the guy in back is the brakeman, what do the men in the middle do — sing Broadway show tunes?
The only real level of skill in bobsledding is apparently how fast they can jump in at the beginning, because there’s always an announcer screaming, “That's their fastest start time yet! THE AMERICANS ARE SO GOOD AT GETTING INTO THE SLED!” Their mothers must be so proud.
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