‘Sheep’ or ’Snow Dragon’ - proceed with caution

The newly designed sledding course for these Olympic Games is affectionally called “The Sheep” to its designer but locals refer to the 370 degree spiral as the “Flying Snow Dragon” and some debate if its too fast and furious.

For bobsled, luge and skeleton racers, the track facts at of The Sheep at the Yanqing National Sliding Center in Beijing are impressive and somewhat daunting. Navigating 16 curves, with an elevation drop of almost 400 feet competitors fly down the mile long track scaling against grades as much as 18%.

Sledders and riders experience forces of up to four-Gs for as many as seven seconds launching them down the icy shoot at breakneck speeds of up to 75 miles per hour.

“Your normal steers that you think would work through there don’t work,” says Canadian Skelton sledder Jane Channell. “So you really have to figure out what works for your sled to cut the least amount of ice while still maintaining that speed and building pressure around the corner to whip off.”

Its hard to see on television, but the consequences of any slight movements can loom large. Oversteering, head movements and weight shifts may send one into the wall or turn a sled over crashing.

The risk of fully flipping over isn’t as great for skeleton athletes, who compete with lower centers of gravity a trait not shared with the other two disciplines. Wyatt continued “You saw in the luge, they had loads of issues there, because you lose that pressure on the sled in this weightless moment.”

Weightlessness. A good word for what one feels between turn 14 and 15 a pass called ‘the hump’.

“Think about when you’re driving in a car,” (and). “You go over a hill, you get that weightless feeling. That’s kind of what we’re experiencing.” Canadian skeleton racer Jane Channell, compared it to riding a roller coaster without a seatbelt while lying on a sled.

“You have to find the line that’s going to allow you to come out of 13 with the straightest line possible, so that you don’t find yourself riding too fast up onto the radiuses of 14 and 15. Because it’s when you take that direction, without the curve and pressure to hold onto, that it wants to flip you.”

“If you’re not going dead straight at that moment, it becomes difficult to control the sled.” Regardless of the event, though, there is always a danger in ramming the left wall and overcompensating to the right.” Said Great Britain’s Marcus Wyatt

The Subtle physics at breathtaking speeds can make or break a run and mean the difference between Gold, silver or one’s safety.

And when one thinks of safety it’s a very real issue. Speed kills as the saying goes and memories of Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili the Georgian slider who died during a practice run in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympics makes one realize the dangers these tracks impose and there have been calls to slow down speeds of these new courses.

“It’s quite nasty, the Sheep” says its designer by Uwe Deyle, the German architect whose resume also includes the Olympic courses at Turin and PyeongChang.

“My goal was not to build a highway, but to have chances to lose time at every curve. And the Sheep is maximum difficulty at maximum speed.”

“I’m very proud of the Sheep sequence because it’s new. It’s invented. It’s not a copy. And it worked out perfectly by demonstrating how difficult the sport is.”