Monobob

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Monobob at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games

Monobob is a bobsleigh discipline in which the athletes ride a bobsled run in the sports equipment of the same name designed for one person . In contrast to other bobsleigh disciplines, the monobob pilot is solely responsible for accelerating the bob at the start, for steering and for braking.

Starting from St. Moritz , Monobob gained international reach in the 2010s. From 2022 the discipline for women will be part of the program of the Olympic Winter Games . At the Youth Winter Games , young athletes of both sexes have been competing for monobob medals since 2016. In addition, monobobs are used in para-bobsleigh , the disabled sport variant of bobsleigh. A characteristic of monobob competitions is - unlike other bobsleigh disciplines - the use of uniform racing sleds. The rapid rise from monobob to Olympic discipline was controversial.

Historical development

Route map of the Olympic Bob Run St. Moritz – Celerina
Monobob medal winners of the 2016 Winter Youth Games: Mercedes Schulte , Laura Nolte , Kelsea Purchall (from left to right)

Over the 20th century there were different across the long term unsuccessful approaches, in addition to the 1924 or 1932 established Olympic bobsleigh disciplines to create four-man and two-man shows a variant of the bobsleigh, in which only one person in the luge sitting. According to the International Monobob Club (IMBC) based in St. Moritz , the approach from which the Olympic discipline later developed goes back to the designer Renzo Podar : Podar handed over his single sled, developed in 2005, to the Olympic Bob Run St. Moritz – Celerina , where in the second half of the 2000s a group of interested bobsleigh pilots and other advocates around the artist Rolf Sachs gained experience with the device that IMBC founded and campaigned for the wider spread of the monobob. From 2010 monobob competitions were held in St. Moritz. The Swiss bobsleigh association Swiss Sliding organized a racing series as a sponsor from 2011 in cooperation with the watch manufacturer Omega .

In the 2010s, the monobob gained popularity as a training and entry-level device. Above all in the junior segment, it was used as a lighter and slower alternative to the two-man and four-man bobsleigh, to introduce young bobsleigh pilots to the sport. As a replacement for the two-man bobsled in 2012 , Monobob received a place in the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games . With a view to this major event, the world association IBSF (International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation) increasingly took on the sport. In order to provide the athletes with the same conditions as possible - in contrast to the classic, heavily material-dependent bobsleigh disciplines - the association (following an international tender) ordered standardized racing sleds from the manufacturer SwissBob . To compensate for any material differences that existed, at the Olympic youth bobsleigh competitions the leaders swapped sports equipment with those who placed last after the first of two runs. The German Jonas Jannusch and Laura Nolte won the monobob gold medals at the Winter Youth Games in Lillehammer .

In July 2018, the board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided, following a proposal by the IBSF, to include women's monobob in the program of the 2022 Winter Olympics . This increased the number of women's competitions (until 2018 only two-man bobsleigh) to two and adjusted it to the number of men's competitions (two-man and four-man bobsleigh). To maintain this balance, the men's monobob was not included in the Olympic schedule. Other IBSF proposals for Olympic disciplines - such as women's four-man bobsleigh - were rejected. As a result of the IOC decision, the World Bobsleigh Federation organized the first international monobob races for women outside of the junior segment in the 2018/19 season: Australian Breeana Walker won both premier competitions on November 4th and 5th, 2018 in Lillehammer . As with the youth races, the association provided the equipment for all twelve participants. The competitions, which initially only took place loosely without their own overall ranking, were combined as a women's monobob world series in winter 2020/21 . The individual races of this world series took place in parallel - in the same week at the same location - to other IBSF competition series, on December 12, 2020 in Innsbruck-Igls for the first time as part of the first-class Bobsleigh World Cup . At the 2021 World Cup , women’s monobob is also part of the program.

Regulations and material

The Youth Olympic Winter Games in 2020 Monobob used

The International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) has different provisions for the women's monobob and the youth monobob, with the women's rules being adjusted in October 2020 before the start of the first ever world series. The regulations supplement the superordinate International Bobsleigh Regulations , which, among other things, stipulate the age limits: A minimum age of 13 applies for youth events, and for adult races, the starters must be at least 15 years old. All athletes under the age of 18 require the approval of a guardian.

The women's monobobs have been manufactured by Munich-based iXent GmbH since the 2020/21 season . Only standardized devices produced by this manufacturer are permitted in women's competitions organized by the IBSF. The monobobs used from 2020 differ from the sledges previously used, among other things, in that the sledges are no longer rigid, but consist of moving front and rear parts like two-man bobs. In contrast to the youth competitions, there is no common pool of materials from which the sports equipment is randomly distributed to the athletes. Instead, the member associations buy or lease the sled, which according to media reports cost 22,000 euros, from the manufacturer. With a few exceptions ( e.g. the use of your own steering cables is permitted), spare parts must also come from iXent's production .

A monobob is 280 cm long, weighs 162 kg without an athlete and can reach a maximum weight of 247 kg (for a woman as a pilot) or around 260 kg (for a man as a driver). It is about 40 cm shorter and 3–8 kg lighter without a crew than a two-man bobsleigh. Monobobs reach top speeds of 130 km / h and, according to the two-man bobsleigh Olympic champion Mariama Jamanka, are 9 km / h slower than the sledges for two riders because of their lower weight. Lisa Buckwitz explained in 2018 that she experienced a “completely different driving behavior in the monobob than in the two-person”, which she attributed to the different center of gravity of the devices, while Laura Nolte in 2020 spoke of a similar driving behavior, the monobob merely sliding “up [in the train] a little more around ”.

Para-monobob

Monobobs are the standard sled in para-bobsleigh competitions for physically handicapped bobsledders. The first para-monobobs were developed by Renzo Podar and Fritz Burkard in the early 2010s, and the IBSF has been organizing international competitions in this discipline since March 2013. The first Para-Bobsleigh World Cup was held in the winter of 2014/15, and the first World Championships took place in 2016. The IBSF distinguishes between two start classes, each of which is driven by mixed gender: Para bobsleigh sitting (PB) and Para bobsleigh with push (PBP). In PB competitions, the monobob is pushed by a mechanical starting device. The monobobs developed by SwissBob in 2014 could be converted into a para-monobob within a few minutes by adding a Para-Kit - a “fish fin” that acts like a roll bar and protects against injury.

Assessments and criticism

Annika Drazek and Mariama Jamanka were critical of the introduction of the women's monobob.

In the early 2010s, various observers - both the media and bobsleigh pilots - saw the monobob as a good opportunity to introduce young people to bobsleigh at an early stage. The principle of using material of the same quality as possible met with a positive response from the participants at the 2016 Winter Youth Games: Third- placed Kelsea Purchall spoke of a “really fair trial”, and the Youth Olympic Champion Jonas Jannusch praised the idea behind it, the chances of winning to be distributed among more athletes than just those with the best equipment.

With the inclusion of the women's monobob in the program of the Olympic Winter Games, criticism increased, among other things, of the development, which was perceived as rash. The two-man bobsleigh Olympic champion Mariama Jamanka saw no sporting sense in "completely rebuilding a discipline within an Olympic cycle" and questioned the expected level of performance. In several interviews, Jamanka expressed general skepticism towards the monobob and justified her dislike with the fact that the character of bobsleigh as a team sport is lost if you sit alone in the sled. In addition, as a beginner's device, the monobob is far less spectacular than the four-man bobsleigh (which she would have preferred as an Olympic women's discipline) and is therefore a “step in the wrong direction”. Other successful athletes in the two-man bobsleigh, such as Katrin Beierl and Annika Drazek, raised similar points of criticism. The Americans Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries , both of whom had also campaigned for the women's four-man bobsleigh, made positive comments in the summer of 2020 about the inclusion of the women's monobob in the World Cup program. Humphries spoke of a new motivational challenge and highlighted equality with men in terms of the number of competitions. IBSF President Ivo Ferriani also took the position that being able to compete in a second discipline is particularly important for the promotion of female athletes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported in 1932 by such a construction Fritz closing time ( "Einerbob with hand brake"), developed in 1975 Oscar Dandrea in Cortina d'Ampezzo a designated also as Monobob device. See. The Monobob. In: Neue Zürcher Nachrichten , December 24, 1932, p. 4; Bob: single-seat bobsleigh from Cortina In: Walliser Bote , August 12, 1975, p. 7. Another date for Renzo Podar's trip with the “first solo bobsleigh” is 1979, see J. Philip Rathgen: Monobob St Moritz: A man and his sled on classicdriver.com. September 20, 2011.
  2. ↑ About the IMBC: From humble beginnings to an Olympic discipline on theimbc.ch. Accessed December 30, 2020.
  3. ↑ Monobob - the revolution in bobsleigh. In: Olympia SaisonMag 2014 . P. 22f .; J. Philip Rathgen: Monobob St. Moritz: A man and his sled on classicdriver.com. September 20, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b dpa : Long Night for Machata - New Vision with Monobob. In: Augsburger Allgemeine. February 28, 2011.
  5. ↑ FIBT commissions SwissBob to produce the monobob on ibsf.org. May 16, 2014; Monobobs are “made in Liechtenstein”. In: Fatherland. January 15, 2020. SwissBob AG worked with the Sauber F1 Team , among others .
  6. ↑ a b Monobob proves an instant hit at Lillehammer 2016 on olympic.org. February 26, 2016; Youth Olympic Winter Games 2016 in Lillehammer: These are the IBSF athletes! on ibsf.org. 15th February 2016.
  7. ↑ Women's monobob - a new Olympic discipline is making headway on olympic.org. 1st February 2020.
  8. ↑ a b Women's monobob will be an Olympic discipline in Beijing in 2022 on ibsf.org. 18th July 2018.
  9. ↑ a b Australian Breeana Walker wins first women's monobob race on ibsf.org. 5th November 2018.
  10. ↑ On December 30, 2020, the following IBSF regulations were in effect:
  11. ↑ a b International Women's Monobob Regulations 2020 , published in October 2020.
  12. ↑ dpa : Women's monobob in all racing series of the Bobsleigh World Federation on sueddeutsche.de. May 12, 2020.
  13. ↑ International Women's Monobob Regulations 2020 , published in October 2020; Season guide of the Olympia Bobrun , p. 27. Accessed December 30, 2020.
  14. ↑ Bobsleigh infographic on ibsf.org. Published 2015, accessed December 30, 2020.
  15. ↑ a b Fastest monobob in the ice channel on rekord-institut.org. Accessed on December 30, 2020. At the 2020 Winter Youth Games, Charlotte, who placed twelfth, achieved a maximum speed of 125 km / h, see Monobob gets underway at the Olympia Run in St. Moritz. In: The Sport Feed. January 20, 2020.
  16. ↑ a b Anne Armbrecht: Why many women are critical of the new discipline monobob on spiegel.de. December 14, 2020.
  17. ↑ Peter Stein: Lisa Buckwitz is looking forward to the Olympic premiere for Monobob. In: Märkische Allgemeine. 19th September 2018.
  18. ↑ Falk Blesken: Is Monobob Dangerous Without Training? That's what Laura Nolte says. In: Westfalenpost. December 12, 2020.
  19. ↑ Para Sport on ibsf.org. Accessed December 30, 2020.
  20. ↑ International Para Bobsleigh Regulations on ibsf.org. Published August 2019. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  21. ↑ Andreas Rabel: Gera disabled athletes switch to the ice. In: Thuringian General. January 24, 2019.
  22. ↑ Johannes Mohren: "You have the feeling of driving a go-kart" on rbb24.de. May 21, 2020.
  23. ↑ Steven Jörgensen: "As if you put a Formula 1 driver in a go-kart". In: The world. December 11, 2020.
  24. ↑ Christoph Geiler: Controversial premiere of the monobob: The egg dance in the ice channel. In: Courier. December 6, 2020; dpa: "That is the wrong approach" on faz.net. 26th February 2019.
  25. ↑ Tim Reynolds: Women getting a second bobsled event at 2022 Olympics on apnews.com. 19th July 2018.
  26. ↑ Women's monobob included in the 2021 Lake Placid World Championship schedule on teamusa.org. July 1, 2020.