The fast ice in the Engadin

No, it's not normal to lie face down on a board with runners, plunge headfirst into an ice channel and experience a dangerous rush of speed at up to 140 km/h. But normality and everyday life are rarely encountered in the Engadine winter anyway, and so the Cresta Run is also characterised by cheerful extravagance and British nonchalance.

Flying while lying down

This cheerful mood has been maintained since the early days, when the winter event calendar was still quite meagre. ‘Dance evening at the hotel’, ‘carriage ride in the morning’ or ‘five o'clock tea’ were too staid for the first English winter tourists, who preferred to pass the time with all kinds of fun and games. They thought it would be a great idea to race down the icy road from St. Moritz to Celerina on flat sleds. The idea quickly became a popular sport and in 1884 a group of British people built the first separate ice track. Since even then, it was all about achieving the best times, an open ice channel with walls made of ice was constructed in this ‘original version’, which allowed for an excellent angle of inclination. Soon, the flat sleds were reaching speeds that made the good Grisons farmers shake their heads. Consider this: the car had only just been invented, there were no aeroplanes yet and steam locomotives ‘only’ reached 112 km/h on test tracks.

‘No Woman No Cry’

When skeleton was first introduced as a new discipline at the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz/Celerina in 1928, the international sports community honoured the Cresta Run as an Olympic venue Five years later, after an enormous amount of progress in terms of technology and popularity, the 1933 general assembly saw a step backwards: lying on one's stomach and chest was suddenly said to be harmful to women's health, whereupon the Cresta Run was declared a male domain. It was not until 2018 that this rule was overturned, allowing women to once again risk neck and crop on the 1,212-metre descent, through ten bends, with gradients of up to almost 40%, at speeds of up to 140 km/h, with their noses just a few centimetres above the ice!

The bobsleigh makes its entrance

The Cresta Run was a huge success, but just a few years after the beginning of its era, the resourceful English brought another winter highlight to sunny Engadin. As early as 1888, the ‘St. Moritz Post Davos and Maloya News’ reported on an American named Stephen Whitney, who had presented a bobsled in Davos, two sleds connected by a Of course, a similar vehicle soon appeared in St. Moritz: a multi-seat sledge with an iron garden rake as a brake.

As always, the sports-mad English took this fun seriously and in 1897 founded the St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club. The sport boomed and the demanding route with the infamous Horse-Shoe Bend was chosen twice as the venue for the Winter Olympics (1928 and 1948).

The track is still almost unchanged today, running for 1,722 metres to Celerina and dropping around 130 metres in the process. Those interested can follow the route on an informative walk of around 45 minutes from the finish area in Celerina to the start in St. Moritz – but why not try out what it feels like to experience a centrifugal force of 4G for yourself? Safely sandwiched between the pilot and brakeman, you will experience an ‘adrenaline kick with tradition’ in a race four-man bobsleigh!

Our tip: If you like to revel in history, you should not miss the bobsleigh museum, which is open on Tuesdays from 5 to 6 p.m. and on request. Incidentally, the visit can be perfectly combined with the preceding guided tour of the historic village of Celerina (meeting point at 4 p.m. at the tourist information office at the train station).