Competition

The first organized competition in the sport was held on the Cresta Run on January 5, 1898, with fivepassenger sleds with two of the passengers being women. For better steering, they were equipped with four runners, positioned on axles much like the four wheels of a car. With the new design, speeds on the mountainside became dangerously fast, so an artificial bobsled run with a gentler slope was built at St. Moritz in 1902.Bobsledding spread rapidly to other Alpine countries. By 1914, when the first European championships took place at St. Moritz, there were more than a hundred bobsled runs in Europe.The Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et Tobagganning (FIBT) was founded in 1923 to establish rules so that the sport could be included in the first Winter Olympics at Chamonix, France, in 1924. Only fourman sleds raced there. A fiveman competition replaced the fourman in 1928, but the fourman returned in 1932 (Lake Placid) and has been on the program ever since.