The Winter Olympic sport of skeleton is a truly unusual and frightening sport. Imagine hurling yourself head-first down an icy winding 1200-metre bobsled track in less than a minute at speeds of up to 130 kilometres an hour! This is what a dedicated and, some would say, crazy group of former surf lifesavers commit themselves to day in and day out to win gold for Australia.

‘We get called crazy a lot and I guess you have to be a bit crazy to succeed in this sport, but above all we are dedicated and passionate athletes chasing the Olympic dream,’ AIS Olympian Michelle Steele said.

Now visitors can experience skeleton first-hand with the launch of the new skeleton exhibit in Sportex, the interactive sports experience at the AIS.

According to Steele, the exhibit is amazingly lifelike. ‘This is really very similar to how we prepare for our run before we take the plunge onto the ice. We rehearse each turn and get to know the track, and this is exactly what visitors to Sportex can experience with this exhibit.’

The AIS began its foray into the sport of skeleton in 2004, when it auditioned 73 athletes to join the new sport program.

The results of those tests saw four young athletes from very different backgrounds join the AIS Skeleton program. They had to learn how to drive themselves head-first down the ice, mastering g-forces and sudden changes of direction, while reaching speeds up to 130 kilometres an hour. A split second of lost concentration and the consequences are guaranteed to be painful.

Only three months after her first World Cup outing and six months of training on ice, Australian skeleton athlete Michelle Steele did the unthinkable and qualified for the Torino 2006 Winter Olympic Games. The ambitious project had been a success!

To find out more about AIS athlete guided tours, visit the AIS Tours website

To learn more about our skeleton athletes, visit the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia website