Would You Participate in a Sport Called Skeleton?

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Zipping down a curving track of ice headfirst at speeds of up to 80 mph (129 kph) on a tiny sled is not a sport I am keen to try. Then I remember going down the best sledding hill in my neighborhood when we still lived in New England. This was before my dad got out of the Navy and we moved home to NC. I had a Flexible Flyer Sled much like the one in the picture. It was a steep hill and at the bottom was a six-foot chain-link fence surrounding a factory. You had to make a tight turn at the bottom to avoid crashing into that fence. Usually, we wound up making a hard turn and rolling off into the snow. I never crashed into the fence. Some sledders did. We were so bundled up, though, that no one got hurt. Had the sport of Skeleton still been included in the Olympics in the 1960s, the young me that road that Flexible Flyer down that hill might have given it a shot. Note: Skeleton was included in the Olympics back in 1928 and 1948 before beind discontinued. It was brought back in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Olympics. (Thanks Google.)