Cresta Run

The Cresta Run is a natural ice 1,212.5 m (3,978 ft, over three-quarter mile) long skeleton racing toboggan track in the Swiss winter sports town of St. Moritz, and one of the few runs dedicated primarily to skeleton. It was built in 1884 near the hamlet of Cresta in the municipality of Celerina/Schlarigna by Major Bulpett, eventual founder of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTC), and the people of St. Moritz. It has continued as a partnership to this day between the SMTC, founded in 1887, and the people of St. Moritz.

The sport of intermural sled racing originated around the nascent winter resort activities at the Kulm hotel in St. Moritz during the winters of the early 1870s, and the members still congregate for lunch at the Kulm in the 'Sunny Bar'. In the early days of competitive sledding, the predominant style was luge-style racing lying on one's back, but the invention of the flexible runner sled (Flexible flyer) in 1887, known colloquially as 'the American', led to Mr. Cornish using the head-first style in the 1887 Grand National. He finished fourteenth due to some erratic rides but established a trend and by the 1890 Grand National all competitors were riding head-first. The head-first style for a time became known as 'Cresta' racing.