It’s not unusual to pick up a new hobby in college. Some students might join a drama club, or take classes to learn a new language. Many link up by being part of societies for a range of niche interests (Squirrel feeding club, anyone?). But for a select few, the hobby could lead to the Olympics.
Unlike the high-skill acquisition sports such as gymnastics, figure skating or tennis (where it is nearly impossible to reach elite levels without beginning in early childhood), both bobsled and skeleton often recruit athletes with a strong but varied athletic background. Prior to college, many star U.S. sliding athletes had little to no exposure to the sport that soon would have them traveling around the world, hurtling down ice-covered tracks at eye-watering speeds.
Contrary to being a disadvantage, Frank Del Duca said starting his sport later allowed him to develop fundamental skills with a wider range of athletic pursuits, and beginning earlier wouldn’t necessarily have led to a greater outcome.
“If you’re going to do it super young, it’s going to be so different than going 80-95 miles an hour,” he said. A child’s body weight will be relatively minimal that the skills needed just simply aren’t comparable, he explained. Plus, their core strength won't have developed enough to withstand the G-forces of sliding down a track. “So, being more generalized and maybe riding dirt bikes, and racing go-karts or even ski racing would be more helpful.”
Transferable skills
Del Duca always had watched bobsled at the Olympics, and always thought it was cool. But without a collegiate bobsled circuit, he thought no more of it. (Currently there are two youth training programs for bobsled and skeleton in the U.S., one in Park City, UT, and one in Lake Placid, NY.) Instead, after a successful high school career as a ski racer, during which he won the title of state champion in Maine, he competed in track and field as a sprinter and long jumper.
But then he found out about recruitment combines held in Lake Placid, and along with a friend from college, he tried it out, training while helping his father open a restaurant after college.
I dove in headfirst and I’m still here, ten years later.
Like Del Duca, Olympian skeleton slider, Kelly Curtis, first learned about the bobsled combine while competing in track and field at college. Athletics were in her blood - her father, John Curtis, played in the NFL - and growing up, the Olympics were a must-watch. Her coach, Dan Jaffe, saw her particular brand of explosive energy and was reminded of alumna Erin Pac, a 2010 Vancouver Games bobsled bronze medalist, suggesting Curtis try out.
At first, she didn’t really consider it, but a few years later, while at graduate school at St. Lawrence University, she drove the 90 minutes to Lake Placid to give the bobsled track a try. At the 2014-15 Women's Bobsled North American Cup in Lake Placid, she took silver and bronze, before ultimately finding her passion for skeleton.
“That first time, the coach sent me off from halfway up the mountain, and was just like, ‘Hope to see you at the bottom!’” Curtis said. “And then once you get down, all you can think is, ‘How can I do that again?’ It’s been a thrill ever since.”
From track and field to a slippery slope
All three sliding sports effectively have two parts: the push start, and the ‘sliding’ part of the events, in which one to four athletes zoom along a curved track, in a futuristic canoe-like apparatus on runners (bobsled), headfirst and face down on a sled (skeleton), or on their back, toes pointed for extra aerodynamics (luge).
It’s that first part - the push - where momentum is built for the run. To achieve this, athletes must have the strength of an explosive sprinter, whilst having the flexibility of a yogi, bent over at extreme angles while typically running over 25 mph.
This is the part where Curtis’ and Del Duca's background in track and field comes in handy. And they're not alone. Sliders such as Mystique Ro, Kaysha Love, Del Duca, and James Reed, all transitioned to the ice from track and field, while others such as Sylvia Hoffman and Elana Meyers Taylor came from basketball and softball - sports similarly requiring speed and power. Between them, they have multiple Olympic and world medals to prove that starting their sports later on did not deny them success.
“The training [for bobsled] is very similar to short sprinting,” Del Duca said. “We’re just making sure we’re lifting as well.”
Think fast
Del Duca also said he noticed those who come from ski racing seem to have a good understanding of driving lines. Just a slight pull on the D-rings that steer a bobsled or the gentlest touch of a toe on the ice in skeleton is crucial in a sport won by mere hundredths of a second. A minimal mistake of banking just slightly wrong can make the difference between a gold medal and dead last. Anticipating the physics of a curve while traveling at immense speeds is something both skiers and sliders must master.
Skeleton racer Austin Florian agrees. Florian grew up Alpine ski racing in the northeast, completing an engineering degree at Clarkson University, just north of Lake Placid. During his junior year, he saw a flier for skeleton, and thought he’d give it a try. “Luge didn’t interest me, because I’m not a strong upper body guy, and I’m 50lbs too small for bobsled,” Florian said. Twelve years later he’s still on the skeleton circuit, most recently having won the inaugural skeleton mixed team event with Ro at the 2025 IBSF World Championships in Lake Placid.
“It makes a lot of sense going from skiing into skeleton,” Florian said. “The big thing, I think, is the mentality of being able to go fast, and turn your brain off. To just think about what you’re doing, instead of thinking about what you’re doing - ignoring the scary parts and focusing on the task at hand.”
Feel the fear and do it anyway
The scary parts of sliding sports are another reason starting later in life might be a good thing. “If my two-and-a-half-year-old son were like, eight, or six years old, I cannot even imagine sending him down in a bobsled,” Del Duca said.
Many sliders talk of the loud rattling while taking a run (the unavoidable result of careening down hard ice on metal runners), as well as the impact on the nervous system of fear and tension that never quite goes away. “Every now and then something will scare you - maybe you take a big hit - sometimes it’ll shake you a little bit, but that’s part of it, just ignoring that and continuing on,” Florian said.
Sliding sports are tough, for hardened athletes who can handle varied athletic requirements (while also coping with G-forces up to five Gs). And perhaps of all the possible explanations, that’s why those with a well-rounded physicality thrive so well in them.
“It’s a lot more rough than it looks on TV, but if you think you’ll like it, please come try out,” Del Duca said. “Just be generally athletically developed, and hopefully the passion takes you really far. I love it. It really is unlike anything else.”