Number of top-six finishes on the World Cup circuit athletes must win, including last season and this season, to qualify for the 2006 Winter Games: 4

Most recent year the skeleton was in the Olympic program before Salt Lake City in 2002: 1948 St. Moritz

Person in the photograph American Jim Shea tucked into his helmet before his gold-medal winning performance at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games: His grandfather, John Shea, who was killed in a car accident a few weeks before the Games. John won two speed skating gold medals at the 1932 Games in Lake Placid.

Site of the renowned skeleton track called the Cresta Run: St. Moritz, Switzerland, site of the Winter Games in 1928 and 1948

Two famous sports enthusiasts who tackled the Cresta Run: U.S. President John F. Kennedy, actor Errol Flynn

Number of races Italian Nino Bibbia won on the Cresta Run: More than 220, including two en route to a gold medal at the 1948 St. Moritz Games

Number of years between American John Heaton’s first and second Olympic silver medals: 20. He was 19 when he won the first in 1928 and 39 when he won the second

Apparatus on which Briton Alex Coomber practiced her starts in snow-free Bath, England: A sled built from an adapted metal tea tray fitted with skateboard wheels and handles normally found in a toilet for the disabled

Measure taken by a design engineer to determine which of the British skeleton’s steel runners would run most effectively at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games: Kristan Bromley, known as “Dr. Ice,” smuggled home 76 litres of tap water from the course in Salt Lake City, froze it and tested it in a lab