Skeleton is an individual sliding sport in which an athlete rides a small, rigid sled head‑first and face‑down down an iced track; runs are timed and the competitor with the lowest combined time over a set number of heats (usually two in World Cup/most Olympics events; four in Olympic individual competition formats may vary) wins. Performance is measured by run times (to thousandths of a second), with start/push speed, line (steering) and sled setup affecting results; rankings are based on total cumulative time across heats.
