Any body positioning mistakes can make athletes less aerodynamic and lead to tiny increases in time that can cost them a medal. Whether in a team of two or four, bobsled riders stay tucked tightly inside the sled to reduce the area available for air to smash into. Downward-facing skeleton riders do the same. To minimize drag from the air, luge riders – who are face up – lie as flat as possible. The more aerodynamic an athlete or team is, the greater the speed.īobsled teams must tuck themselves behind the leading edge of the sled to avoid the oncoming air. While gravity pulls the athletes and their sleds downhill, they are constantly colliding with air particles that create a force called air drag, which pushes back on the athletes and sleds in a direction opposite to their velocity. So the difference between gold and a disappointing result comes not from gravity and potential energy, but from a fast start, being as aerodynamic as possible and taking the shortest path down the track. Even tiny mistakes made by the best athletes in the world can cost a medal.Īll the athletes start at the same height and go down the same track. The difference between the gold medal and silver medal in the men’s singles luge at the 2018 Winter Olympics was just 0.026 seconds. Final times are calculated by adding four runs together. Most tracks are around a mile long (1.6 km), and the athletes cover that distance in just under a minute. Racers need to be as aerodynamic as possible to minimize drag and go faster. Though bobsled, luge and skeleton may look easy, in reality they are anything but. When athletes enter a turn at 80 mph (129 kph) they experience accelerations that can reach five times that of normal gravitational acceleration. Racers are dealing with a lot of kinetic energy and strong forces. Both gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy increase as weight increases, meaning there is more energy in a four-person bobsled team than there is in a one-person luge or skeleton for a given speed. The reason a flying baseball will shatter the glass if it hits a window is that the ball transfers its kinetic energy to the glass. The potential energy is converted to another form of energy once the object starts falling. Gravitational potential energy represents stored energy and increases as an object is raised farther from Earth’s surface. Riders in the sledding events reach their fast speeds because of the conversion of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy. The track is roughly a mile long (1.6 km), drops 397 feet of elevation (121 meters) – with the steepest section being an incredible 18% grade – and comprises 16 curves. This year’s races are taking place at the Yanqing National Sliding Center. The big-picture physics is simple – start at some height and then fall to a lower height, letting gravity accelerate athletes to speeds approaching 90 mph (145 kph). Gravity is what powers the sleds down the ice-covered tracks in bobsled, luge and skeleton events. But that thought merely scratches the surface of all the subtle physics that go into a gold-medal-winning performance. It would be easy to assume that the competitors are simply falling or sliding down a track at the whim of gravity. Much of the excitement of a luge run is easy to miss – the athletes’ movements are often too small to notice as they fly by looking like nothing more than a blur on your television. It is how the athletes react to the physics that ultimately determines the fastest runs from the rest of the pack. But beneath the thrilling descents of the winding, ice-covered track, a myriad of concepts from physics are at play. Speed alone may be the factor that draws many sports fans to the bobsled, luge and skeleton events at this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics.
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