The 2018-’19 IBSF World Cup Bobsled and Skeleton season is beginning to wind down, after months of traveling Europe, the series returns to North American soil when Lake Placid, plays host to the tour’s seventh stop, Friday and Saturday, February 15-16.

More than 200 athletes from 24 nations are expected to compete on the Mt. Van Hoevenberg course.

Germany’s Friedrich Francesco headlines the men’s bobsled field. The 29 year-old has won 10 times in 12 races, with six, two-man victories and four, four-man wins. He carries a 146-point lead in the chase for the overall two-man World Cup crown and has a 73-point edge in the race for the 2019 overall four-man title.

Elana Meyers Taylor and her U.S. teammates are looking forward to returning to Lake Placid and competing on their home track. For the most part, it’s been an up-and-down campaign, however; Meyers Taylor raced well throughout the European leg, capturing five women’s bobsled podiums and her first win of the season, Jan. 26, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. That victory snapped Germany’s 24-race winning streak in World Cup and Olympic bobsled races dating back to last season.

The race for the overall men’s skeleton World Cup title is very close. Only 76 points separate the top three sleds and just a single point separates first and second place. Olympic champion Yun Sunbin, of South Korea, carries a mere single point lead over Russia’s Alexander Tretiakov and is 76 points ahead of Tretiakov’s teammate, Nikita Tregubov, who sits third.

Just like the men, a slim 76 point margin is the difference between the top three women. Russia’s Elena Nikitina is trying to hold a pair of German sliders, Jacqueline Loelling and Tina Hermann, who sit second and third, respectively.

Tickets for the IBSF World Cup bobsled and skeleton race are available online. Two-day adult tickets are available for $26, while two-day junior and senior tickets are being sold for only $16. Adult single-day tickets are $16 and single-day junior and senior tickets are $10. Admission is free to children six and under and for guests who purchase the Olympic Sites Passport.

Schedule as follows:

Friday, February 15th, 2019

8:30 am Women’s Skeleton Race – Heat #1
10 am Women’s Skeleton Race – Heat #2
11:30 am Awards: Women’s Skeleton
1 pm 2-woman Bobsled Race – Heat #1
2 pm 2-man Bobsled Race – Heat #1
3:15 pm 2-woman Bobsled Race – Heat #2
4:15 pm 2-man Bobsled Race – Heat #2
5:30 pm Awards: 2-man and 2-woman Bobsled

Saturday, February 16th, 2019

9 am Men’s Skeleton Race – Heat #1
10:30 am Men’s Skeleton Race – Heat #2
11:45 am Awards: Men’s Skeleton
1:30 pm 4-man Bobsled Race – Heat #1
2:30 pm 4-man Bobsled Race – Heat #2
3:30 pm Awards: 4-man Bobsled

Photo of BMW IBSF World Cup 2-woman Bobsleigh courtesy of the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation (IBSF).