Bobsleigh at the 1952 Winter Olympics

Although Norway had been at the forefront of many winter sports no bobsleigh tradition existed in the country and the nation’s Olympic début in the sport had only come four years earlier in 1948. For the 1952 Winter Games a bob run, the first ever built in Norway, was specially constructed on the Frognerseter hill to the north-east of Oslo. Ten countries were present with Germany returning in triumph after they had not been invited to the 1948 Games in Sankt Moritz.

Prior to the Olympics the International Bobsleigh Federation ruled that these Games would be the last without a weight limit for the competitors. The average weight of the winning German four man team was over 117 kgs, which was more than the weight of the same year’s Olympic heavyweight boxing champion, and the weight was distributed less evenly than the average Olympic athlete.