1928 Winter Olympics / Bobsleigh

Bobsleigh at the II Olympic Winter Games
information
venue	St. Moritz
Competition venue	Bobsleigh Run
Nations	14th
Athletes	116 (116 men)
date	February 18, 1928
decisions	1
← Chamonix 1924 Lake Placid 1932 →

A bobsleigh competition was held at the II. Winter Olympics in St. Moritz in 1928 . The venue was the man-made natural track Bobsleigh-Run with a length of 1,570 m, a height difference of 120 m and 16 curves. The International Bobsleigh Federation FIBTdecided to introduce the "ventre à terre" style, in which the crew lay with their heads forward on the sled. As in 1924, the bobsleigh teams were free to choose whether they wanted to start with four or five athletes (in St. Moritz everyone made use of the maximum number of crew members). In the following year, the "ventre à terre" style was again banned by the FIBT because of its dangerousness, and crash helmets were made compulsory.

Medal table

space	country				total
1	United States	1	1	-	2
2	German Empire	-	-	1	1

Five-man bobsleigh

(all times in min)

space	country	athlete	1st run	2nd run	total
1	United States	USA II: Billy Fiske Nion Tucker Geoffrey Mason , Clifford Gray Richard Parke	1: 38.9	1: 41.6	3: 20.5
2	United States	USA I: Jennison Heaton Thomas Doe David Granger , Lyman Hine Jay O'Brien	1: 42.3	1: 38.7	3: 21.0
3	GER	Germany II: Hanns Kilian Valentin Krempl Hans Heß , Sebastian Huber Hans Nägle	1: 41.7	1: 40.2	3: 21.9
4th	ARG	Argentina I: Eduardo Hope Justo del Carril Hector Milberg , Horacio Iglesias Horacio Gramajo	1: 40.1	1: 42.5	3: 22.6
5	ARG	Argentina II: Arturo Gramajo Ricardo Gonzalez Rafael Iglesias , Mariano De Maria John Victor Nash	1: 42.3	1: 40.6	3: 22.9
6th	BEL	Belgium I: Ernest Lambert Marcel Sedille-Courbon Léon Tom , Max Houben Walter Ganshof	1: 39.8	1: 44.7	3: 24.5
7th	ROME	Romania II: Grigore Socolescu Ion Gavăț Traian Nițescu , Toma Ghițulescu Mircea Socolescu	1: 43.8	1: 40.8	3: 24.6
8th	SUI	Switzerland I: Charles Stoffel René Fonjallaz Henry Höhnes , Emil Coppetti Louis Koch	1: 43.1	1: 42.6	3: 25.7
9	GBR	Great Britain II: Henry Martineau Walter Birch John Dalrymple , John Gee Edward Ramsden Hall	1: 41.7	1: 44.5	3: 26.2
10	GBR	Great Britain I: George Pim Guy Tracey David Griffith , Frederick Browning Thomas Warner	1: 40.6	1: 45.7	3: 26.3
11	MEX	Mexico I: Lorenzo Elizaga Juan de Landa , J. Díaz, Mario Casasos , G. Díaz	1: 44.9	1: 42.8	3: 27.6
12	NED	Netherlands I: Curt van de Sandt Jacques Delprat Henri Dekking , Edwin Teixeira de Mattos Hubert Menten	1: 43.5	1: 45.5	3: 29.0
13	SUI	Switzerland II: Jean Mollien John Schneiter René Ansermoz , André Mollien William Pichard	1: 41.7	1: 48.2	3: 29.9
14th	FRA	France I: Jean de Suarez d'Aulan Michel Baur William Beamisch , Roger Petit-Didier Jacques Petit-Didier	1: 43.7	1: 46.3	3: 30.0
15th	FRA	France II: André Dubonnet Bernard du Pontavice de Heussey , Joseph Dedein Stéphane de la Rochefoucault , Jacques Rheins	1: 45.7	1: 44.5	3: 30.2
16	BEL	Belgium II: Charles Mulder Hubert Kryn Ferdinand Hubert , Louis Rooy Robert Langlois	1: 45.0	1: 46.2	3: 31.2
17th	POLE	Poland I: Józef Broel-Plater, Jerzy Bardziński, Jerzy Łucki , Jerzy Potulicki-Skórzewski Antoni Bura	1: 44.8	1: 46.8	3: 31.6
18th	GER	Germany I: Hans-Edgar Endres, Paul Martin Karl Reinhardt , Paul Volkhardt Rudolf Soenning	1: 48.0	1: 43.9	3: 31.9
19th	ROME	Romania I: Alexandru Berlescu Eugen Ştefănescu , Petre Petrovici Tita Rădulescu Horia Roman	1: 47.3	1: 44.9	3: 32.2
20th	LUX	Luxembourg I: Marc Schoetter Raoul Weckbecker , Guillaume Heldenstein Pierre Kaempff Auguste Hilbert	1: 45.8	1: 46.9	3: 32.7
21st	ITA	Italy I: Giancarlo Morpugo Carlo Sem Luigi Cerutti , Giuseppe Crivelli Piero Marchetti	1: 45.0	1: 49.6	3: 34.6
22nd	AUT	Austria II: Franz Lorenz Franz Wohlgemuth , Eduard Pechanda Benno Karner Richard Lorenz	1: 52.3	1: 49.7	3: 42.0
-	AUT	Austria I: Gustav Mader Hugo Weinstengel , Michael Waissnix Walter Sehr Franz Pamperl	1: 44.2	DSQ	DSQ

Date: February 18, 1924
23 bobsleighs at the start, 22 of them in the ranking.

Billy Fiske was only 16 years and 260 days old at the time of his Olympic victory, making him the youngest ever winter Olympic champion until 1992. The two teams from Czechoslovakia decided not to participate and gave forfait. Austria I lost a team member on the way and was disqualified. Out of 25 teams, only 22 could classify.

Web links

• Bobsleigh at the 1928 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official report of the 1928 Winter Olympics (PDF; 1.3 MB)