Sports (Europe Brief Newspaper): USA Bobsled and Skeleton signs major endorsement deal with Honda, securing financial and technical support through the 2030 Winter Olympics in France.
The agreement, which was made public on Wednesday, has been in the making for a while. Among other things, USABS will have access to Honda’s wind tunnel in Ohio for research and development as the teams’ official premier technology partner.
In sports where a hundredth of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing, this kind of information is essential for figuring out the best sled location and other aerodynamic considerations. The collaboration will eventually extend to the design of sleds.
“Long term, they’ll be playing a role in helping us design bobsleds,”
USABS CEO Aron McGuire told The Associated Press.
“We’ll be looking at building four-man sleds initially. They will be providing the aerodynamic expertise and providing us insights, recommendations, into how we can best design a sled as it relates to other factors, like safety of the athletes sitting in the sled and the performance side of the design.”
All competitions through the 2030 Games will feature Acura logos on the teams’ sleds.
“In sports where sleds can reach speeds of over 90 miles per hour and the difference between first and last can be measured in fractions of a second, our Honda engineers are eager to apply their engineering skills and racing background to the USABS programs,”
said Larry Geise, the executive vice president of Honda Development & Manufacturing of America.
“It’s at the top of the cash partners that we’ve had,”
McGuire said.
With the next Olympics only seven months away, the announcement comes at a crucial moment for the programs. Going into Milan-Cortina, the United States has a good chance of winning medals in bobsled and skeleton; Kaysha Love is the current women’s monobob champion, Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and Elana Meyers Taylor are the two most decorated female Olympic drivers, and Austin Florian and Mystique Ro, an American team, won a gold medal in the new mixed team skeleton discipline earlier this year.
How does Honda’s long-term partnership influence USA Bobsled and Skeleton’s medal chances?
Utilizing Honda’s top-notch wind tunnel in Ohio, USABS is able to conduct in-depth studies on athlete aerodynamics and sled location. Optimizing sled shape and athlete posture through accurate airflow analysis is essential for peak performance since races can be won or lost by a hundredth of a second.
Using their decades of automotive engineering experience, Honda experts will work closely with USABS to create new, aerodynamically superior bobsleds, beginning with four-man sleds. Better race timings and a competitive edge are strongly correlated with improved sled design, which increases speed, stability, and safety.
In order to help USABS enhance sled economy and athlete performance at extreme speeds (over 90 mph), when aerodynamic efficiency is crucial, Honda’s engineers contribute invaluable experience from high-performance racing.
