Cresta Run

Start at Cresta Run

The Cresta Run is a natural ice 1,212.5 m (3,978 ft, over three-quarter mile) long skeleton racing toboggan track in the Swiss winter sports town of St. Moritz, and one of the few runs dedicated primarily to skeleton. It was built in 1884 near the hamlet of Cresta in the municipality of Celerina/Schlarigna by Major Bulpett, eventual founder of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTC), and the people of St. Moritz. It has continued as a partnership to this day between the SMTC, founded in 1887, and the people of St. Moritz.

The sport of intermural sled racing originated around the nascent winter resort activities at the Kulm hotel in St. Moritz during the winters of the early 1870s, and the members still congregate for lunch at the Kulm in the 'Sunny Bar'. In the early days of competitive sledding, the predominant style was luge-style racing lying on one's back, but the invention of the flexible runner sled (Flexible flyer) in 1887, known colloquially as 'the American', led to Mr. Cornish using the head-first style in the 1887 Grand National. He finished fourteenth due to some erratic rides but established a trend and by the 1890 Grand National all competitors were riding head-first.^[1] The head-first style for a time became known as 'Cresta' racing.

The sport and its history

The Cresta Run and the SMTC were founded by devotees of sledding (tobogganing in British parlance) who adopted a head-first technique of racing down an icy run, as opposed to the feet-first supine and somewhat faster luge race. Both evolving sports were natural extensions of the invention of steerable sleds during the early 1870s by British guests of the Kulm hotel in St. Mortitz. These initial crude sleds were developed almost accidentally—as bored well-to-do gentlemen naturally took to intermural competition in the streets and byways of twisty mountainous downtown St. Moritz hazarding each other and pedestrians alike. This gave impetus to a desire to steer the sleds, and soon runners and a clumsy mechanism evolved to allow just that along the longer curving streets of the 1870s. This also allowed higher speeds on the longer runs. Local sentiments varied, but eventually complaints grew vociferous and Kulm hotel owner Caspar Badrutt built the first natural ice run for his guests, as he had worked hard to popularize wintering in the mountain resort, and did not want to lose any customers to ennui, nor his workforce to injury from errant sleds on the streets.

The run

The run has its head end (top) located under a geological formation known as the 'Leaning Tower'. The overall total drop is 514 ft and the gradient varies from 2.8 to 1 to 8.7 to 1 (length to drop).

The modern Cresta track is not shared with bobsled, unlike the first half-pipe sledding track built by hotelman Caspar Badrutt for his guests. Most of it is located within the contour of a steep ravine and it is created anew each winter using the rocky ravine and banks of earth as a butressing bulwark for wooden framework and iced packed snow. It is owned and operated by an all-male club created in 1885 by British military officers with the official name of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTC), but is generally just as often referred to as 'The Cresta Club'. The exclusion of women from the course, which is still enforced, dates from the late 1920s and was instituted because of injuries to female racers. It took official effect in 1929, though women had been banned from competitive events several years earlier.

The course has two entrances known in typical British understatement as 'top' and 'junction' respectively; and two parts known as 'upper' and 'lower' or equivalently, 'bottom'. The entrance at junction is adjacent to the SMTC clubhouse and is about a third of the way down from 'top' as the sled slides. Similarly, the exit is simply called finish, and given a typical average speed of over fifty mph, the rider will exit the course at over 80 mph.

The track served as host of the skeleton event for both the 1928 and the 1948 Winter Olympics.^[2][3]

Club information

The primary purpose of the 1300 member club founded in 1887 is "…the conduct of races and practice on the Cresta Run and the encouragement of tobogganing generally…" 2 While not snobbish, the Cresta Club gathers well-to-do gentlemen and is totally amateur. There are many more Luge and Bobsled runs world wide, but only one Cresta devoted to head first sledding promotion. The club asserts that most of the other sledding sports are dominated by professionals and it is one of the last bastions of the true amateur in sports.

Like many social clubs, members are elected from a list of qualifiers called the Supplementary List. The course is open to anyone that meets the three criteria for making that list, and need not be English. It has a lot of clubbish rites such as the "Firework", the "Shuttlecock Club" and a dedicated drink, the "Bullshot". It has even a secret society similar to the US "Skull and Bones". The historic Cresta run was used as a Winter Olympics course twice— both times during which the winter games were hosted in St. Moritz (1928 and 1948), such doubling being itself a rarity. The club sponsors over thirty races a season which generally runs from just before Christmas to late February. The track is opened as soon as it is seasonally possible to do so, and kept open in the same weather dependent manner like all natural ice and snow attractions.

Notable rider-members

Some notably good riders from the membership of the past were Nino Bibbia, Italy; Jack Heaton, USA; and Billy Fiske, USA (the first American pilot killed in World War II as a volunteer in the "Millionaire Squadron").

Among the best riders in recent years: 8 times Grand National Winner and Swiss Franco Gansser, Lord Clifton Wrottesley, finished fourth at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, current Top record holder James Sunley (50.09 in 1999) and current Junction Record holder Johannes Badrutt (41.02 in 1999). Marcel Melcher was the youngest ever Winner (age 19, in 1979) of the Grand National.

Women and the Cresta

Although current rules ^[4] forbid women riders, it was not always so ^[5]. For example, T A Cook records that in 1895, various experiments were made by women on the Cresta testing different riding positions on different styles of toboggan; although at that time women riders were encouraged to use only the lower half of the course.

Towards the end of the season there is a Ladies Event in which women compete from Junction by invitation only.

References

1. ^ http://www.cresta-run.com/html/general_info.cfm
2. ^ 1928 Winter Olympics official report. Part 2. p. 14. (French)
3. ^ 1948 Winter Olympics official report. pp. 6, 23. (French) & (German)
4. ^ St Moritz Tobogganing Club FAQs
5. ^ Notes on Tobogganing at St Moritz, Second Edition, Chapter IX, by T A Cook, 1896

External links

• Cresta FAQ page, includes some of the assertions noted or quoted above.
• course description and background
• Official Website homepage
• Official shuttlecock club homepage