Whistler Watch

Have you seen the Olympic bobsleigh track? It’s totally awesome! It’s right near Blackcomb Base 2 and it’s so open and racing already!

There’s a total elevation drop of 152 metres. The length of the track is 1450 metres. This is the steepest and fastest track in the world. There are 16 corners and the athletes go so fast they experience 5 Gs in force against their bodies. Since the athletes go so fast and there is so much force on their bodies, as a general rule, athletes only make a maximum 3 runs a day.

The concrete track is covered with between 2 and 5cm of ice that is misted on and shaved down by hand. There’s no automatic machines that keep the track iced.

When I went there, there was a training camp going on where 8 - 16 year olds were learning how to luge. It was so cool to see a little kid, who couldn’t be more than 150cm tall racing down on a luge.

The highest speed that has been reached down a track is on a luge. It was 149.7 km/h. That’s even faster than the 4 man bobsled that has a record of about 145 km/h.

I’m super stoked to get involved in skeleton (my mom is going to kill me when she reads this), so I asked how someone like me can get involved. Come January, on Sundays, they have training camps for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. Just head over to the Sliding Centre and you’ll be able to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $30 for a day of training.

If you want to train competitively, you can join the club. Go to: bcsliding.com or whistlerslidingcentre.com.