Slidensa
TracksLake Placid 1980

Replaced 1979–1999

Lake Placid 1980

Mt. Van Hoevenberg 1980 bobsleigh and luge tracks

Mt. Van Hoevenberg, Lake Placid, New York · United States

The luge track was removed in 1999; the top of the bob run gave way to today's combined track.

No mapped line survives for this track yet.

Real track · Published figures

First raced
1979
Last raced
1999
Length
1,557 m
Drop
148 m
Curves
16

Bobsleigh track. Published figures for the separate luge track range from 1,000 to 1,014 m, 14 to 15 curves and a 93 to 96 m drop. The 1980 Official Results give the men's luge course as 1,014 m, with 14 curves and a 95.55 m drop.

Explore the track

The Slidensa model, drawn over the real ground. Follow the run into every curve.

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In Slidensa

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Game model · Two-man bobsleigh reference run. These lengths, speeds and loads come from Slidensa’s physics and can differ from the real track’s published figures.

Length
1,645m
Drop
148m
Curves
16
Top speed
150km/h
Peak load
5.0g
Reference run
0:58.18
Curve-by-curve guide · 16 curves

The three curves in lime pull hardest in the reference run.

  1. 1 7° left Kink 1.0 g · 43 km/h
  2. 2 13° right Kink 1.1 g · 64 km/h
  3. 3 11° right 1.1 g · 70 km/h
  4. 4 6° right 1.2 g · 82 km/h
  5. 5 16° left 1.3 g · 90 km/h
  6. 6 19° left 1.4 g · 93 km/h
  7. 7 29° right 1.9 g · 100 km/h
  8. 8 47° right 2.2 g · 109 km/h
  9. 9 37° left Shady 4.6 g · 117 km/h
  10. 10 160° right 4.4 g · 121 km/h
  11. 11 34° left 4.2 g · 132 km/h
  12. 12 15° left 1.7 g · 136 km/h
  13. 13 62° left 4.3 g · 138 km/h
  14. 14 44° left Kink 4.2 g · 138 km/h
  15. 15 65° right 4.7 g · 142 km/h
  16. 16 36° right 5.0 g · 149 km/h

The story

For the 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid built two separate refrigerated tracks on Mt. Van Hoevenberg: a 1,557 m bobsleigh run and a luge run of about a kilometre. Both hosted their sport's World Championships in 1983, and the bob track later staged the 1997 skeleton World Championships. Frost heaves then damaged the luge track, which was removed in 1999, and a single combined track, finished in 2000 for the Goodwill Games, took over the top of the bob run.

  • Bobsleigh and luge raced on two different tracks here, not one shared channel.
  • Both tracks hosted World Championships in the same year, 1983.

Today

The combined track of 2000, 1,455 m long with 20 turns, replaced them on the mountain.

See the place on OpenStreetMap

Racing history

Earliest and latest recorded race of each event at this level, from published results.

Olympic Games

Two-man bob 1980
Four-man bob 1980
Men's luge 1980
Women's luge 1980
Doubles luge 1980

World Championships

Two-man bob 1983
Four-man bob 1983
Men's luge 1983
Women's luge 1983
Doubles luge 1983
Men's skeleton 1997