Bobsleigh at the 1968 Winter Olympics

The bobsleigh events at the 1968 Winter Games were held at the ski resort of L’Alpe d’Huez which had held the World Championships seventeen years earlier in 1951 and again, as a test for the forthcoming Olympics, in 1967. The 1967 World Championships were a major failure as the refrigeration system in use at the time could not cope with bright sunlight and the track thawed so much as to cause the complete abandonment of the four man competition. To avoid bare patches of concrete being exposed during the Olympics the organisers made drastic changes to prepare for the Games. A more powerful cooling system was installed, canopies were put up to block sunlight over some of the turns and turn 12, the most problematic on the track, was provided with a liquid nitrogen circuit. Despite all these modifications competition was seriously disrupted by the weather conditions and very nearly cancelled altogether. The two man event took five days to complete instead of the regulation two whilst the four man event was restricted to two runs instead of four due to thawing.

The track measured 1500 m in length, and had 13 curves. The start was located at 2030 m above sea level, and the finish line 140 m lower, making for an average descent of 9.33%. Eleven countries sent bobs to Grenoble and all came from either Europe or North America.