1988 Winter Olympics / Bobsleigh

Bobsleigh at the 1988 Winter Olympics
information
venue	Calgary
Competition venue	Canada Olympic Park
Nations	23
Athletes	135 (135 )
date	20.-28. February 1988
decisions	2
← Sarajevo 1984 Albertville 1992 →

At the XV. During the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary , two bobsleigh competitions were held. The venue was the Canada Olympic Park . The route was 1475 m long, overcame a height difference of 120 m and had 14 curves.

Bobsleigh has been on the IOC's hit list since the 1978 IOC session in Athens . With 12: 2 votes, the discipline was placed on a provisional basis. The reason for this was that the number of operating countries had shrunk to a minimum.

The weather conditions during the bobsleigh competitions were very bad. The athletes were troubled by strong gusts of wind from the Chinook . This blew sand into the track, especially during the first run of the two-man bobsleigh competition. While the low starting numbers still had good conditions, the drivers with higher starting numbers had no chance despite the clean drive, including many favorites. Among the disadvantaged was the GDR pilot Wolfgang Hoppe, who started out as a top favorite . The results of the competitions were also falsified by enormous temperature fluctuations.

The Jamaican bobsleigh team's first Olympic appearance served as inspiration for the comedy film Cool Runnings, which appeared six years later .

Balance sheet

Medal table

space	country				total
1	Soviet Union	1	-	1	2
2	Switzerland	1	-	-	1
3	GDR	-	2	1	3

Medalist

competitor	gold	silver	bronze
Two-man bobsleigh	Jānis Ķipurs , Vladimir Koslow	Wolfgang Hoppe , Bogdan Musiol	Bernhard Lehmann , Mario Hoyer
Four-man bobsleigh	Ekkehard Fasser , Kurt Meyer , Marcel Fässler , Werner Stocker	Wolfgang Hoppe , Bogdan Musiol , Dietmar Schauerhammer , Ingo Voge	Jānis Ķipurs , Guntis Osis , Juris Tone , Vladimir Koslow

Results

(all runtimes in seconds, total times in minutes)

Two-man bobsleigh

space	country	athlete	1st run	2nd run	3rd run	4th run	total
1	URS	Soviet Union I: Jānis Ķipurs , Vladimir Koslow	57.43	58.05	59.52	58.48	3: 53.48
2	GDR	GDR I: Wolfgang Hoppe , Bogdan Musiol	57.06	59.26	59.45	58.42	3: 54.19
3	GDR	GDR II: Bernhard Lehmann , Mario Hoyer	57.65	58.67	59.59	58.73	3: 54.64
4th	SUI	Switzerland II: Gustav Weder , Donat Acklin	58.01	58.88	60.12	59.05	3: 56.06
5	AUT	Austria I: Ingo Appelt , Harald Winkler	57.22	59.83	60.00	59.44	3: 56.49
6th	ROME	Romania I: Csaba Nagy Lakatos , Costel Petrariu	58.83	59.21	59.55	59.02	3: 56.52
7th	FRG	Germany I: Anton Fischer , Christoph Langen	57.58	59.70	60.06	59.28	3: 56.62
8th	AUT	Austria II: Peter Kienast , Christian Mark	58.19	58.96	60.48	59.28	3: 56.91
9	URS	Soviet Union II: Zintis Ekmanis , Aivars Trops	57.95	59.12	60.72	59.13	3: 56.92
10	CAN	Canada I: Greg Haydenluck , Lloyd Guss	57.36	59.90	60.11	59.60	3: 56.97
11	FRG	Germany II: Michael Sperr , Rolf Müller	57.47	60.09	60.42	59.86	3: 57.84
21st	SUI	Switzerland I: Hans Hiltebrand , André Kiser	58.74	60.58	61.51	60.38	4: 01.04

Runs 1 and 2: February 20, 1988 Runs
3 and 4: February 22, 1988

41 bobsleighs from 23 countries, 38 of them in the rating. There were even 48 bobsleighs in the training sessions, but the reduced field of participants also caused problems.

In GDR 1 there was a change of brakes after Wolfgang Hoppe's standard partner Dietmar Schauerhammer was not in top form due to an injury. The start was scheduled for 10 a.m. on both competition days. Storm wind initially forced an interruption and finally the termination of the third run on February 21. The first two runs were therefore a «game of chance». Hoppe said that he was “lucky to be able to start at the beginning of the first run. Dust, sand and dirt were on the track in the second run ». After two runs, Ķipurs led the GDR sledges Hoppe and Lehmann at the same time (each 0.84 s back).

Ķipur's gold medal was the first (and only) in this discipline for the Soviet Union. Hoppe set the best time in runs 1, 3 and 4, but only achieved eighth place in the second run (1.21 s behind Ķipurs). On the other hand, Hans Hiltebrand had only driven 21st time in the first run.

Four-man bobsleigh

space	country	athlete	1st run	2nd run	3rd run	4th run	total
1	SUI	Switzerland I: Ekkehard Fasser , Kurt Meier , Marcel Fässler , Werner Stocker	56.83	57.37	55.88	57.43	3: 47.51
2	GDR	GDR I: Wolfgang Hoppe , Bogdan Musiol , Dietmar Schauerhammer , Ingo Voge	56.16	57.31	56.77	57.34	3: 47.58
3	URS	Soviet Union II: Jānis Ķipurs , Guntis Osis , Juris Tone , Vladimir Koslow	56.72	57.28	56.41	57.85	3: 48.26
4th	United States	USA I: Brent Rushlaw , Hal Hoye , Michael Wasko , William White	56.72	57.67	56.69	57.20	3: 48.28
5	URS	Soviet Union I: Māris Poikāns , Olafs Kļaviņš , Ivars Bērzups , Juris Jaudzems	56.75	57.66	56.70	57.24	3: 48.35
6th	AUT	Austria I: Peter Kienast , Franz Siegl , Christian Mark , Kurt Teigl	57.07	57.40	56.27	57.91	3: 48.65
7th	AUT	Austria II: Ingo Appelt , Josef Muigg , Gerhard Redl , Harald Winkler	56.93	57.51	56.41	58.10	3: 48.95
8th	GDR	GDR II: Detlef Richter , Bodo Ferl , Ludwig Jahn , Alexander Szelig	57.18	57.60	56.33	57.95	3: 49.06
9	SUI	Switzerland II: Hans Hiltebrand , Urs Fehlmann , Erwin Fassbind , André Kiser	56.39	57.91	57.13	57.82	3: 49.25
10	ITA	Italy I: Alex Wolf , Pasquale Gesuito , Georg Beikircher , Stefano Ticci	57.20	57.72	56.53	58.01	3: 49.46
11	FRG	Germany I: Anton Fischer , Franz Niessner , Uwe Eisenreich , Christoph Langen	57.02	57.75	56.71	58.07	3: 49.55
14th	FRG	Germany II: Michael Sperr , Olaf Hampel , Florian Cruciger , Rolf Müller	57.58	58.04	56.41	58.14	3: 50.17

Runs 1 and 2: February 27, 1988 Runs
3 and 4: February 28, 1988

26 bobsleighs from 17 countries, 25 of them in the rating.

The International Bobsleigh Federation wanted to allow a regular race against TV interests by bringing the start times forward, but IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch then threatened to cancel the bobsleigh competitions for 1992.

The preliminary decision was made on Sunday morning in the third run, when Fasser with an early start number and therefore favorable conditions took 0.89 seconds off the leading Hoppe. The temperature, which was lower than on Saturday, on the one hand, and the sun on the other, created new conditions. The artificially cooled route slowed down with each sled. Fasser like Hoppe complained of very deep grooves in the second rounds of Saturday and Sunday. If there were fairer conditions in the four, the start number played a decisive role again.

Web links

• Bobsleigh at the 1988 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official report of the 1988 Winter Olympics (PDF; 11.1 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ «Grotesque running should open eyes». In: Sport Zürich, February 24, 1988, p. 15.
2. ↑ «Grotesque running should open eyes». In: Sport Zürich, February 24, 1988, p. 15.
3. ^ "Olympic Weekend in Calgary". In: Sport Zürich, February 19, 1988, p. 13.
4. ^ "Storm wind forced demolition" and "OLYMPIA TOTAL" as well as "Defending champion Wolfgang Hoppe angry". In: Sport Zürich, February 22, 1988, pp. 1, 15 and 16.
5. ↑ Gloss: «Iooo stories», 4th contribution . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 27, 1988, p. 23 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
6. ^ "Fasser: Gold thanks to routine and super team". In: Sport Zürich, February 29, 1988, p. 17.