Skeleton: The Winter Sport Invented by Someone With Nothing Left to Lose
We have a special guest writer today, Dori, who is not only the chief administrator keeping the 120 Proof machines running, she also is our resident hopeless Olympics junkie, and inexplicably married Todd.
As the 2026 Winter Olympics wind down, I turned on the replay coverage of some of the competitions I missed, and immediately found a sport that feels like it was invented during a midlife crisis.
For the uninitiated, skeleton is the Olympic sport where a person willingly throws themselves face-first down what is essentially a refrigerated Slip ’N Slide designed by a Bond villain. They are on a plank. A literal plank. With blades. And vibes.
That’s it. I call it advanced trust issues with gravity.
The Origin Story (Probably)
Somewhere in the late 1800s, a group of very bored Swiss men were standing around in winter.
Man #1: “It’s cold.”
Man #2: “We should go downhill.”
Man #3: “Feet first?”
Man #1: “Coward.”
And thus, skeleton was born. I refuse to believe there was more planning than that.
The Mechanics of Chaos
Let’s break down what’s happening here:
Athlete sprints.
Athlete jumps onto what looks like a baking sheet from Williams-Sonoma.
Athlete lowers face toward ice like they’re about to apologize to it.
Athlete disappears around a curve at freeway speeds.
Everyone politely pretends this is normal.
I need someone to explain to me how we collectively agreed this is fine. We won’t let toddlers near a coffee table corner, but yes, by all means, let’s hurl fully grown adults headfirst into a frozen halfpipe at 70 mph.
The physics? Terrifying.
The margin for error? Negative.
The helmet? Adorable. Not reassuring.
The Commitment Level
What kills me is how calm they look. No flailing. No screaming. Just this serene, “I have made peace with my choices” expression.
Meanwhile, I tense up when my Uber driver changes lanes too aggressively. These athletes are threading a needle made of ice while their eyelashes are basically exfoliating the track.
And the announcers are like: “Ooooh, slight wobble in Curve 9.”
Slight wobble? Sir, that is a human croissant being folded at highway speed. This is the only sport where “minor adjustment” means “barely avoided becoming folklore.”
The Real Question
The first time I tried to hang a picture frame, I upgraded the wall from “fine” to “structurally confusing.” Meanwhile 1880’s Switzerland managed to sprint headfirst onto a plank and head downhill.
You cannot convince me that the prototype didn’t end with a Swiss guy folded into a snowbank insisting, “Zat was intentional!”
Before timing sensors there was just someone at the bottom asking, “still alive?” And then watching a riderless plank slide past like it had places to be.
Respect Where It’s Due
And here’s the annoying part — they’re incredible.
The start alone? Explosive.
The body control? Surgical.
The bravery? Borderline mythological.
You have to be able to: Sprint like a track athlete, mount a sled mid-run, steer with microscopic shoulder shifts, and trust ice.
Trust. Ice.
I can’t even trust my freezer not to form a weird ice chunk in my water.
And Yet…
I cannot look away. Because there is something wildly, beautifully human about it. It’s the Olympics distilled down to its purest form: “Can I do this thing that no one asked me to do… better than anyone else on Earth?”
It’s ridiculous. It’s dangerous. It’s slightly unhinged. And I love it.
So as these fearless lunatics — sorry, elite athletes — rocket down this frozen concrete water slide from hell, I salute them.
From my safety of my living room. With snacks. At zero miles per hour.
Now if you’ll excuse me, some brave lunatic is about to test gravity face-first, and I’ll be over here achieving couch-based excellence.
Dori / 120 Proof
Jaded, caffeinated and emotionally unavailable to any team below .500.
