Skeleton

Australia and Olympic Skeleton

Michelle Steele and Shaun Boyle became Australia's first Olympic skeleton representatives when they competed at the Torino Games in 2006. Michelle finished 13th and Shaun 22nd. Michelle made her World Cup debut in 2005, just 13 weeks after trying the sport.

The high performance skeleton program from the Australian Institute of Sport has targeted beach sprinters and track athletes, which have produced a number of strong Australian competitors. At Vancouver 2010 there were three Australian athletes; Anthony Deane, Emma Lincoln-Smith and Melissa Hoar. They finished 23rd, 10th and 12th respectively.

At the Sochi 2014 Games Michelle and Lucy Chaffeur finished 14^th and 17^th in the women’s event, while John Farrow secured Australia’s best male result of 17^th.

John returned four years on, finishing 19^th at the PyeongChang 2018 Games. He was joined by Olympic debutant Jackie Narracott who finished 17^th in her first Games. Jackie was following in the footsteps of her uncle Paul Narracott, who was the first Australian to compete at both a summer (Los Angeles 1984 - Athletics) and winter (Albertville 1992 – Bobsleigh) Games.

Olympic History

Skeleton was part of the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, both times in St Moritz, the Swiss town which was the birthplace of the daredevil sport back in the 1800s.

At Salt Lake 2002, the men’s event returned to the official program and for the first time a women’s event was included.

Sport Format

Skeleton is held on the same course as the bobsleigh and luge (1200m) disciplines. The men’s and women’s events consist of four timed heats, held over two consecutive days. Medals will be awarded to the quickest overall combined times.