Beyond sport: bobsleigh

For several years, bobsleighing has been described as a happy-go-lucky enterprise and the great subject matter for a light-hearted TV advert rather than a title sports discipline with a major heritage. In Italy, the first bobsleighs were used by the air force pilots who would use them to reach the mountain valleys in bad weather, and across the 1950s and 1960s the legendary Italian national team – formed by Eugenio Monti, Giacomo Conti, Lamberto Dalla Costa, Giacomo De Paolis, Roberto Zandonella and Mario Armano – won everything.

It is tough and demanding (for those who practice it) and truly spectacular (for those who watch it). We asked Beijing 2022 Olympian bobbers Giada Andreutti and José Delmas Obou, both on the Italian national team and currently training for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games, to tell us more. The aspect they insisted on the most during our pleasant chat concerned the sleigh itself: "We bobbists have a special relationship with our sleigh", explained Andreutti. "We have to take care of it, shape it, give it a personality that is akin to our driving style. It is a matter of mechanical parts but also of soul. Every pilot likes to have the steering means and the seat set in a certain way. And then we have to constantly polish and smooth the runners because the ones we use during training are the ones we can use during competitions. We make them faster by using abrasive paste and diamond paper, then we have to place metal plates to form a wedge and stiffen the sleigh”. This is when the team concept takes shape, as Obou told us: "The bobsleigh must run perfectly, like a Swiss watch. The other team members and I always travel with our sleighs. We are the ones who physically carry it, so we must achieve a high level of coordination that has to be studied in detail. We have to tackle the lifts and then push and turn the sleigh together to place it on the track. We can only do this together. This means that we are a team in the race but even more importantly on a logistical level”.

For bobbers, team spirit is of crucial importance. They say their team is more like a family. Andreutti explained this clearly and unequivocally: "Bobsleigh is an all-encompassing sport so I can say that you share your everyday life with the team. Firstly, because it is a winter-only discipline, which forces us away from home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from October until March. The only break is during the Christmas holidays. Every day, we train all together in the gym or on the athletics field, prepare the bobsleigh, have lunch, fix the bobsleigh for the downhill run and work on the tracks in the afternoon and then until the evening. Finally, we have to put everything back again. Sometimes other people need to be called in and even opponents join the team. We have often had other national teams help us move our sleigh and that is a good feeling. There is a camaraderie that is not found in other sports.

The sports careers of both Obou and Andreutti started elsewhere, far from icy bobsleigh tracks. Obou was a sprinter, the Italian 100-metre overall champion in 2013 and 2014, while Andreutti was a discus thrower, the overall national champion at Rieti 2018. For both of them, the switch to bobsleighing and the decision to focus only on that also led to a change of mindset regarding training. Obou told us more: "I have to say it: I chose a tough sport. Coming from athletics, I realised that the difference is abysmal. In bobsleighing, there is much more focus on team strength so, in short, it is a sport that also involves team building. I retired from my first career in 2018 and served three and a half years on the Guardia di Finanza police force when the chance came to return to sports. In the Olympic year, by the way. I had not competed in the Olympics, so I jumped at the chance. For me, it was a new beginning. Andreutti feels the same way: "I used to be able to combine winter and summer sports, splitting the year into two seasons. But I realised that I was doing two sports without giving it my all to either one. So I made a choice. In 2020, when I learned of the opportunity to compete at Milan-Cortina 2026, I decided to go for it. Now my life has changed, also because bobsleighing is so demanding. We bobbers have to take care of our physical performance by working on running and strength, but then we have to balance all this with strong mental training. Personally, I do daily exercises to improve reactivity and hand-eye coordination. This is crucial because during the race you have to reset your breathing and heart rate. You have to focus on driving. While the bobsleigh is barrelling down the track at 160 kilometres per hour, you have to control everything. And there is no time to spare. It is a one-of-a-kind sport”. So much more than a light-hearted advert.