AI, Fancy Footwear, and All the Other Gear Powering Olympic Bobsledding

Olympic bobsledding often gets called the “Formula 1 of ice.” Tracks are more than 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) long, and athletes often race down them at speeds nearing 145 kilometers per hour (90 mph). Bobsledders—whether in teams of four, two, or sliding solo—are often subjected to gravitational forces in excess of 5g. At the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games, they’re using tech aimed at making each phase of the race, from initial push to technical driving to final braking, just a little bit more precise than in previous Games.

Men’s four-person bobsledding made its Olympic debut in Chamonix, France, in 1924; women’s two-person bobsledding didn’t enter the Games until 2002 in Salt Lake City. Women’s monobob arrived in 2022. While the earliest bobsleds were made of wood, the sport has been synonymous with steel for years, although in recent decades it has been replaced by carbon fiber, which provides greater lightness and strength.

Each new technological development in the sport has come amid the constraints necessary to keep athletes safe, such as weight and sled sizes. The two-person bobsled can have a max length of 2.7 meters (about 8.9 feet) and a max weight of 390 kilograms (859.8 pounds), including crew. A four-person bobsled cannot exceed 630 kilograms (1,388.9 pounds), including bobbers, and 3.8 meters (12.47 feet) in length.

The weight limit was a necessary move to equalize race conditions and curb the use of athletic specialists who, although not bobsledders, have in the past proven decisive in their teams’ success through the pushing phase. This is far from coincidental, because this is one of the areas where technology makes the biggest impact bobsledding.

At the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games, Germany won 27 medals, 16 of which came from bobsledding, luge, and skeleton. German athletes tend to excel at bobsled because the sport has a long tradition in Germany but also because the country has long focused on innovation in the sport. Automaker BMW, for example, is a strategic partner of the the German federation that oversees bobsledding, luge, and skeleton (Bob- und Schlittenverband für Deutschland) and is credited with the introduction of custom studded shoes, a crucial tool for bobbers' performance.

The first 30 to 50 meters of Olympic bobsled often prove decisive in a race, because it is the only time when athletes can push the sled to reach max acceleration. A couple of years ago, BMW realized that innovations in the bobbers’ footwear could improve their performance during that crucial time.

Looking at the preferences for each team member, BMW made custom spike plates that can be integrated into any type of shoe. Using 3D printing, the company was able to adapt the stiffness and shape of the studs for different shoes and needs. Working this way allowed them to experiment and modify designs quickly. To avoid excessive wear or breakage, the spikes are given greater hardness through plasma nitriding, in which nitrogen is ionized in a high-temperature vacuum and diffused into the steel.