Skeleton

Sport Overview

Skeleton at Milano Cortina 2026

Venue: Cortina Sliding Centre

Competition Dates: February 12-15 (Days 6-9)

Events: 3 (1 men, 1 women, 1 mixed)

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Skeleton is contested on an ice track. The athletes typically sprint alongside their sled for the first few seconds of a run, holding onto the sled with one hand before diving headfirst onto it. Positioned head-first and stomach-down with their chins just centimetres above the ice surface, athletes will use slight shoulder, head, or body movements to steer the sled as they travel at speeds up to 140km/hr. Skeleton events are timed to the hundredth of a second (0.01).

Both the men’s and women’s individual events consist of four runs held over two consecutive days. The lowest cumulative time after all four runs wins.

New to the Olympic program at Milano Cortina 2026 is the mixed team event. Each team consists of one woman and one man, racing in that order. Each athlete on the team does one run. A lighting system signals to the first athlete when the clock starts. Once that athlete has reached the finish, the clock stops, and their teammate goes through the start process. Once the second athlete has finished, the two times are added together and the fastest combined time wins.

Canadian Olympic Skeleton History (Pre-Milano Cortina 2026)

Canada’s first Olympic skeleton success came at Turin 2006, where three of the country’s four medals were won. Duff Gibson and Jeff Pain shared the podium in the men’s event, winning gold and silver, respectively. On the women’s side, Mellisa Hollingsworth seized the bronze medal.

In front of the home crowd, Jon Montgomery enthralled Canadians twice at Vancouver 2010, first by winning gold by 0.07 seconds and then guzzling a full pitcher of beer on live TV while walking through Whistler Village.

Olympic Skeleton History

Skeleton was founded on the Cresta Run in St. Moritz, Switzerland, which was initially the only track in the world for the sport. For that reason, skeleton was featured only at the two Olympic Winter Games hosted in St. Moritz—1928 and 1948—before essentially being replaced as an Olympic sliding sport by luge.

After being contested only by men in its first two Olympic appearances, when skeleton returned permanently to the Olympic program at Salt Lake City 2002, a women’s event was also included. The mixed team event was added for Milano Cortina 2026.