Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships

The Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships (also: IBSF World Championships , until 2015 FIBT World Championships ) are held by the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation , or IBSF for short, in the non-Olympic winters. At these world championships, the world champions in bobsleigh and skeleton are determined. The world championships usually take place annually and at the end of the Bobsleigh World Cup and Skeleton World Cup , which are held together, form the highlight of the season in non-Olympic years. The races at the World Cup do not count towards the World Cup.

history

First edition

sport	discipline	First broadcast
		year	place
Bobsleigh	Two-man bobsleigh women	2000	Winterberg
	Two-man bobsleigh	1931	Oberhof
	Four-man bobsleigh	1930	Montreux
skeleton	Women	2000	Igls
	Men's	1982	St. Moritz

In 1930 world championships were organized for the first time by the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing . In the Swiss municipality of Montreux , Franco Zaninetta's Italian four-man bobsleigh was crowned the first FIBT world champion. A year later, a world championship competition in the two-man bobsleigh took place in Oberhof for the first time and the German bobsleigh consisting of Hanns Kilian and Sebastian Huber became the world championship. In 1933 a world champion was only determined in the two-man bobsleigh, because the four-man bobsleigh competition, which was held in Chamonix , was canceled due to bad weather and bad conditions. Due to the Second World War , there were no FIBT World Championships between 1940 and 1946.

Since the first world championships after the Second World War, the world championship competitions in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh have been held at the same location. In 1960, although it was an Olympic year, FIBT World Championships were organized and held in Cortina d'Ampezzo , as no bobsleigh track was built in Squaw Valley for the 1960 Winter Olympics . Six years later, the world championships take place again in the Italian community. There was a serious accident at the four-man bobsleigh competition. Anton Pensperger's German bobsleigh flew off the track and Anton Pensperger, unlike his pushers Ludwig Siebert , Helmut Wurzer and Roland Eberhart, did not survive the accident. The competition was then canceled and the German bobsleigh was subsequently declared world champion. A year later there was also no four-man bobsleigh competition at the FIBT World Championships in 1967 in Alpe d'Huez , because the competition had to be canceled due to excessively high temperatures.

Although skeleton was already on the program at the Olympic Winter Games in 1928 and 1948 , the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing hosted world championships in skeleton for the first time in 1982 . At the FIBT World Championship in the Swiss municipality of St. Moritz , the Austrian Gert Elsässer secured his first world championship title. The specialty was that, in contrast to the two Olympic competitions, the world championship competition was not held on the Cresta Run , but on the Olympic Bobrun . Between 1992 and 1998, FIBT World Championships were also held in the three Olympic years because, unlike bobsleigh , skeleton was not represented at the Olympic Games until the 2002 Winter Olympics in Turin .

Process of the mixed team competition

Run 1	Run 2	Run 3	Run 4
Skeleton men	Two-man bobsleigh women	Skeleton women	Two-man bobsleigh

In 2000 there were two premieres. For the first time, world champions were determined in both the women's two-man bobsleigh and the women's skeleton. In Winterberg , the German bobsleigh consisting of Gabriele Kohlisch and Kathleen Hering secured the world title. The first world title in the women's skeleton was also won by a German in Igls with Steffi Hanzlik . Since 2004 the world championship bobsleigh and skeleton competitions have been held together at one location. In 2007 another competition was added with the mixed team competition. For each team, a two-man bobsleigh for women and men as well as a skeleton pilot will start. The exact order can be found in the adjacent table. At the first edition, the German team secured the world title. There are also international teams in these competitions, which means that the team does not only have to consist of starters from one nation.

For the 2007/08 season, the FIBT introduced the FIBT Skeleton Ranking and the FIBT Bob Ranking . These rankings serve, among other things, to assign the quota places at the World Cup to the individual nations. In addition, the results of the World Championships are included in the ranking of the respective season. In June 2015 the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing changed its name to the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation and for this reason the world championships have been called the IBSF World Championships since 2016. The team competition was abolished after the World Championships in 2019 and replaced by the skeleton mixed competition. Compared to the old team competition, no international teams are allowed in the mixed skeleton competition and a maximum of two teams per nation are allowed to start. In addition, the athletes must have already started in the individual competitions. This competition was held for the first time in 2020 and the German team consisting of Jacqueline Lölling and Alexander Gassner were crowned the first world champions in this form of competition.

Events

year	venue	Bobsleigh			skeleton			team
		Two-man bobsleigh		Four-man bobsleigh	Women	Men	Mixed
		Women	Men
1930	Montreux			•
1931	Oberhof		•
	St. Moritz			•
1933	Schreiberhau		•
1934	Engelberg		•
	Garmisch-Partenkirchen			•
1935	Igls		•
	St. Moritz			•
1937	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•
	St. Moritz			•
1938	St. Moritz		•
	Garmisch-Partenkirchen			•
1939	St. Moritz		•
	Cortina d'Ampezzo			•
1940–1946: No event due to World War II
1947	St. Moritz		•	•
1949	Lake Placid		•	•
1950	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
1951	Alpe d'Huez		•	•
1953	Garmisch-Partenkirchen		•	•
1954	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
1955	St. Moritz		•	•
1957	St. Moritz		•	•
1958	Garmisch-Partenkirchen		•	•
1959	St. Moritz		•	•
1960	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
1961	Lake Placid		•	•
1962	Garmisch-Partenkirchen		•	•
1963	Igls		•	•
1965	St. Moritz		•	•
1966	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•
1967	Alpe d'Huez		•
1969	Lake Placid		•	•
1970	St. Moritz		•	•
1971	Cervinara		•	•
1973	Lake Placid		•	•
1974	St. Moritz		•	•
1975	Cervinara		•	•
1977	St. Moritz		•	•
1978	Lake Placid		•	•
1979	Koenigssee		•	•
1981	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
1982	St. Moritz		•	•		•
1983	Lake Placid		•	•
1985	Cervinara		•	•
1986	Koenigssee		•	•
1987	St. Moritz		•	•
1989	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
	St. Moritz					•
1990	St. Moritz		•	•
	Koenigssee					•
1991	Altenberg		•	•
	Igls					•
1992	Calgary					•
1993	Igls		•	•
	La Plagne					•
1994	Altenberg					•
1995	Winterberg		•	•
	Lillehammer					•
1996	Calgary		•	•		•
1997	St. Moritz		•	•
	Lake Placid					•
1998	St. Moritz					•
1999	Cortina d'Ampezzo		•	•
	Altenberg					•
2000	Altenberg		•	•
	Winterberg	•
	Igls				•	•
2001	St. Moritz		•	•
	Calgary	•			•	•
2003	Lake Placid		•	•
	Winterberg	•
	Nagano				•	•
2004	Koenigssee	•	•	•	•	•
2005	Calgary	•	•	•	•	•
2007	St. Moritz	•	•	•	•	•		•
2008	Altenberg	•	•	•	•	•		•
2009	Lake Placid	•	•	•	•	•		•
2011	Koenigssee	•	•	•	•	•		•
2012	Lake Placid	•	•	•	•	•		•
2013	St. Moritz	•	•	•	•	•		•
2015	Winterberg	•	•	•	•	•		•
2016	Igls	•	•	•	•	•		•
2017	Koenigssee	•	•	•	•	•		•
2019	Whistler	•	•	•	•	•		•
2020	Altenberg	•	•	•	•	•	•

Eternal medal table

rank	country
01	Germany	67	48	36	151
02	Switzerland	39	35	34	108
03	Italy	18th	18th	07th	043
04th	United States	15th	20th	34	069
05	Canada	11	17th	16	044
06th	BR Germany	10	13	12	035
07th	GDR	08th	09	08th	025th
08th	Great Britain	08th	06th	05	019th
09	Latvia	07th	03	04th	014th
10	Austria	06th	13	16	035
11	Russia	02	09	07th	018th
12	Romania	02	02	02	006th
13	Belgium	01	01	01	003
14th	France	01	-	04th	005
15th	New Zealand	01	-	01	002
16	Czechoslovakia	-	02	-	002
17th	South Korea	-	01	01	002
18th	Soviet Union	-	-	02	002
	Sweden	-	-	02	002
20th	Spain	-	-	01	001
	International	-	-	01	001
total		190	191	188	569

See also

• Bobsleigh at the Olympic Games
• Skeleton in the Olympics
• Bobsleigh World Cup
• Skeleton World Cup

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt (ed.): I only know that we flew . February 7, 1966.