Bobsledding: The Deadly Zig-Zag

There is obviously no such thing as a safe bobsled run, but there are varying degrees of danger. Nobody has ever been killed on Austria’s Igls run, and it was a shock around the famed Ronco course at Cortina, Italy, when Germany’s Anton Pensberger crashed to his death during last month’s world championships. But the Mount Van Hoevenberg run at Lake Placid, N.Y., is another story. With its 16 low-banked curves, abnormally wide straightaways (which leave all the more room for error) and extra-high speeds (up to 90 m.p.h.), it has long enjoyed a sinister reputation as the world’s most dangerous course. Since it was built in 1930, scores of sledders have been seriously injured, and three have been killed.

At last week’s International Diamond Trophy races, sub-zero temperatures had turned the Mount Van Hoevenberg course so hard and slick that the sleds’ runners would not bite into the ice, tended to slip sideways on the turns. Conditions were particularly bad at the 13th and 14th turns—known as the Zig-Zag —where a wooden superstructure was installed to keep the careening sleds from shooting right over the banking. As the four-man competition got under way, a U.S. sled overturned at the Zig-Zag, injuring two of the crew. At that, the wife of the next competitor in line, Lake Placid’s own Joe McKillip, begged her husband: “Don’t go. Please don’t go.” McKillip withdrew. His place was taken by Sergio Zardini, 34, an Italian who moved to Canada two years ago. Zardini was the 1963 four-man world champion, and he had won the Diamond Trophy two years in a row. Just a day before, on the same course, he had driven a two-man sled to victory in the North American-National A.A.U. championships.

At the Zig-Zag, Zardini’s luck ended. Plummeting into the turn at 80 m.p.h., his sled literally took off, hurling its occupants headfirst into the protective superstructure and spilling them out onto the track. The empty sled rattled on across the finish line while rescuers rushed to its crew. One had a concussion and a broken cheekbone, another was badly bruised, a third was unhurt. Driver Zardini was dead, his head crushed by the wooden safety rail.