Banking on Speed: Bobsled

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The following is the transcript for Banking On Speed: Bobsled.

LESTER HOLT, anchor: The Winter Games in Vancouver provide a chance for the United States four-man bobsled team to win its first gold medal in more than sixty years. Team members and an Olympic bobsled designer with help from a materials science researcher and a sports scientist funded by the national science foundation explain how they’ll accomplish this feat. The Bobsled got its name when it appeared in Switzerland in the 1890s – its riders “bobbed” back and forth to try to increase their speed. Today’s Olympic bobsledders use precision moves…and an intuitive understanding of physics…to maximize velocity – the speed of the bobsled as it plummets downhill.

STEVE HOLCOMB, U.S. Bobsled Team: There's more than just four fat guys getting into a sled and sitting there and hoping to win.

HOLT: By hurtling around the icy bends of the course at 5-Gs – five times the force of gravity…akin to what fighter pilots experience. Physicist – and Air Force veteran -- Paul Doherty did the Olympic bobsled run in Lillehammer, Norway --site of the 1994 Winter Games.

PAUL DOHERTY, The Exploratorium: We were being slammed first to the right at five G's and then to the left at five G's. And when you bend your head forward under five G's, which I did through one of the turns, you can't lift it – your neck muscles are not strong to lift it, and bring it back up.

HOLT: What gives the bobsled its velocity is acceleration – initially created during the powerful 50-meter push at the race start…by the team’s feet pushing forcefully against the ice.

DR. DEBORAH KING, Ithaca College: the start is where you are going to try to pick up speed. So you are getting your acceleration.

DR. GEORGE TUTHILL, Plymouth State University: The team is trying to get that bobsled moving as rapidly as possible, by applying maximum force to the track.

HOLT: Then, in a tightly choreographed succession, the bobsledders jump in – while trying to keep the sled steady, and on a straight trajectory.