Australian Bobsled Team Makes a Comeback

Those bobsled tracks are a lot steeper up the sides than you realise.

During my time in Bosnia, I spent a couple of nights in Sarajevo. Many of you likely remember this city as the place where the Yugoslav war of 1991 – 95 came to a crippling head. Others may remember it from the 1984 Winter Olympic games where Torville and Dean claimed gold with their famous BOLERO ice-skating routine.

I was fortunate enough to hear many stories, good or otherwise, and see some fantastic sights in and around Sarajevo while I was there. One of the most surprising attractions I saw was the Bobsled track that was built for those 1984 Winter Olympics.

The Dodgy Policeman

Getting to the bobsled track was an interesting experience in itself. To cut a long story short – after the war, Bosnia was divided into regions (mini states if you like) that are controlled or managed by two different ‘political’ groups, both with their own police. These groups were actually fighting each other during the Yugoslav war, and in so many ways, undercurrents of this animosity are still there.

Anyway, it turns out that the Bobsled track of Sarajevo is in the region held by the ‘Republika Srpska’ government, whilst the remaining part of Sarajevo is held by the ‘Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovnia’ government. So to get from the centre of Sarajevo to the track, we had to pass from the Federation part of town to the Srpska section.

Our tour group was in a small 12-seater bus and as we were heading up a long hill to our bobsled destination, the bus suddenly pulled over at a rather strange cross road. Upon closer inspection as to why we had stopped, I noticed a rather old and beaten police car just in front of us, along with two other regular cars that had also been stopped at the intersection. This intersection was out in the ‘country’ area so I thought it was a rather strange area for police to be stopping people.

The policeman said something to our driver and our driver immediately exited the bus. They spoke quite animatedly for a while, then our bus driver opened his door and asked us all to get our passports out as they needed to be shown to the policeman. My internal CSI investigator brain thought this was all rather dodgy, and I proceeded to tell our driver that I do not have my passport. He seemed quite worried by that answer. The American’s on the tour got their ID’s out straight away but I said that I don;’t carry my passport as a matter of course, certainly not on a day trip in the same city. (I wasn’t going to get my ID out unless I absolutely had to). This was not an official crossing and after all the stories I had heard about extremely dodgy Bosnian police I wasn’t handing anything over at this point.

What was that all about?

After quite a long and animated discussion between the driver and policeman, our driver got back in, handed the American’s back their ID’s and we drove off. After the police car was no longer in view, our guide said that the policeman wanted money or he was not going to let us pass into the ‘Srpska’ territory. Our guide told the officer that the country’s economy depends on tourists like us and we should be treated with respect and not to be extorted! That we are here to learn about Sarajevo and tell other people to come here. Brave man! However it seemed to work as we were allowed to continue and he didn’t ask the rest of us for our ID’s. PHEW.

Aaaaanyway – back to the story

Lurching up to the top of the hill, we observed that the track has definitely seen better days. Almir – our driver/guide advised us that the track was hit hard during the war as it was used by the Republika Srpska as a holding ground from where they bombarded Sarajevo. There were quite a few fights here, the remanents of which are still very visible on the structure. Camera Towers used in the games had fallen and remain in that very grave, there holes in the track and bullet holes everywhere. A visible relic and example of the destruction war causes.

The track however is in a resurgence as a playground for graffiti artists. There are some fantastic designs all along the track and some have included the ever growing moss and natural elements into their designs. Tourists also come and walk parts of the track but more or less, it’s dis-used and will will not be repaired due to cost.

Some of the overgrown sectors of the track, always with graffiti.

Our group started walking from the very top of the track where many teams started their gold medal hopes. The movie ‘Cool Runnings’ immediately came to mind here, so I suggested we make a pretend formation of a bobsled team and someone else could video it as we start our run down the track….. A great idea right? Apparently not! Not a single person responded (awkward!) so we just started making our way down the track nice and slowly .

I didn’t realise how steep the walls of the track were until I decided to take a run down the track and then angle up the aides as the bobsled’s would do. But after only a couple of steps up the side, I felt like I was going to come back down side wards. I tried a few times to get further up and each time was denied my attempt to get higher. Mission very much NOT accomplished but I had fun anyway… and I got a clap from some random after I finished my last run.

How do they do it?

In trying to understand the sport a little more, we were told a little bit of how the teams work to get down the track. They are going at such fast speeds it’s incredible to think how focused these drivers need to be the whole time, as a split second decision can mean success or disaster.

In one section of the track there are numbers along the top of the frame that advise how many g-forces the athletes body is dealing with as they fly around the corner at break-neck speed. The winning German team from the 1984 Olympics when going around this bend at over 100 km/hr would have been facing 5.14 g-forces. So not only are they dealing with speed and deadly corners, they have to content with g-force elements as well. Ouch.

We saw other elements of the track such as the camera broadcast stations both above and below the tracks that have lots walls or have bullet holes all through them. Another sad reminder of the impact of war.

Can you see the old camera station? There’s not much left.

It was great to come up to this part of Sarajevo, (police stop and all) as you also get a spectacular view of the city from above. The city is surrounded by a gorgeous mountain range that is used for skiing in winter and hiking in summer. It’s bittersweet looking at the view as you an see how the city was surrounded by the enemy during the war. On the flip side you can also see how the city has rebuilt itself into a thriving metropolis and capital of the country.