Bobsleighing is a winter sport full of fun and adrenaline. It’s a fast-paced race, with the winners being the team to complete the best times over 4 heats.

Because of the nature of bobsleighing, the sport isn’t an option for children under 16. However, sledging and tobogganing are great starting points for reaching this goal, and the qualities they gain from engaging in these kinds of activities will give them a great set of life skills for almost anything else they do throughout life.

Teamwork

One of the greatest qualities that bobsleighing teaches children is teamwork. Everything about the sport only happens if they work together, from the moment they begin the first run to every twist and turn and braking at the end. What's more, one wrong move out of sync with the rest of the crew could result in a nasty accident. 

A bobsleigh crew must be able to verbally communicate to work as a team before the run and whilst training to understand each other. Still, during the race, they must also listen and be in tune with their team’s body language to understand what is happening.

Risk Assessment

When your child embarks on a hobby such as bobsleighing, they must be happy to take risks. Although through careful training, specialised equipment, and every precaution taken to ensure everyone's safety, when you’re going that fast, there is always the possibility of an accident. With this in mind, your child will develop a healthy understanding of risk, what is acceptable, and how to prevent it in other areas of life.

Reaction Time

Everything about bobsleighing is about speed. The quicker the team can leave the start and pick up the pace, the better their time will be. This all comes down to reaction times and getting started as quickly as possible. Reaction times also come into play during the race in response to the team to make sure the race runs as smoothly as possible.

Endurance

Bobsleighing is hard work, and your child improving their all-round fitness will also build stamina and the ability to maintain their powerful form throughout the race, to drive the vehicle around the bends in a particular way to succeed.

Resilience

It may look easy when you see the professional bobsleigh team running the course during the Olympics; however, to reach that point takes hard work. It also means they have to get back up when it doesn’t go as well as planned. The precision involved will take time, and in the process, and especially, to begin with, there’s likely to be many more failed runs down the track than successful ones.

Perseverance

Learning any sport takes perseverance; they must keep going and trying until they reach their goal. However, because it takes so long to get to actually ride a bobsleigh, and they will need to gain similar skills through sledging, tobogganing and skeleton racing, your child will develop perseverance by the bucketload.

Photo by Brendan Beale on Unsplash