Why Japan has no bobsleigh team at the 2026 Winter Olympics

This year "Bobsleigh Day", an annual occurrence on February 12th, is a painful and somewhat embarrassing reminder of why Japan has no bobsleigh team at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Japan’s absence stems from a surprisingly simple but costly administrative misunderstanding. In 2024, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation updated its qualification rules: to earn a spot in the two‑man event, nations also needed to accumulate points in the four‑man category. In short, Japan misinterpreted the rules and it cost them a place at the games.

Despite the new rules, Japan’s federation still believed that competing only in the two‑man races was sufficient, as had been the case in previous Olympic cycles. Because of this misinterpretation, Japan did not send athletes to the required four‑man World Cup and international races. When the qualification period closed, the federation discovered that, even though the two‑man team had competed, they had zero points in the four‑man standings, making them automatically ineligible for the Olympics.

The revelation prompted a public apology from the Japan Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton Federation, acknowledging both the oversight and the disappointment felt by athletes who had trained for years. The incident has highlighted the challenges of maintaining competitive programs in niche sports with limited domestic infrastructure. Japan only has one official, specialized ice track for bobsleigh in Japan; "the spiral" in Nagano. Which actually makes the story more poignant, because the bobsleigh team went to great lengths to train only to be made ineligible to compete on an administrative error.