If we equate our winter Olympic team to a rugby XV, then the bobsleigh boys are the front row. Cross-country skiers, so fit and persistent, might be the flankers, and snowboarders, all colour and daring, the wingers.

In a rugby squad, the front-rowers like to form their own exclusive club. Strange things go on in the front row of a scrum and the props and hookers don’t seem very willing to let the rest of the world in on the secret. They keep their own counsel. They’re tough and durable, grizzled.

So it is with the bobsledders. Things go on out there on the sled that remain a mystery to most observers.

The Times columnist Simon Barnes commented that he didn’t want to watch Brokeback Mountain while the Winter Olympics were on because if he wanted to see men buggering each other he needed only to watch the double luge. The bobsleigh event doesn’t call for quite the same level of friendliness on the part of the competitors in one team, but it’s still not what we New Zealanders would call a mainstream sport.

Bobsledders are generally more taciturn and usually operate in a tight-knit group. They are also extremely strong and explosive, ideal for that short, sharp burst at the start of their event.

Their sport is extremely traditional. For example, even though women now compete at the Olympics in the bobsleigh, I haven’t noticed an outcry from them yet to have their event’s name changed from “two-man”, the term used by everyone at the venue, to “two-woman”.

The bobsleigh is a sport about which legends grow – speeds reached, accidents survived.

There has been one story floating about the Olympic village about a New Zealand bobsleigh team, but I’ve been unable to have it verified. People I ask just smile and nod.

Apparently, so the story goes, a New Zealand bobsleigh squad was in Europe and needed a fourth man to make up a team. They rounded in on a top athlete, a decathlete, or so legend has it.

They taught him the rudiments of the sport, the sprint at the start and how to then get into the sled, first one leg, then the other. No trouble. Came the day of competition, the new man pushed and sprinted as he’d been bid, then got into the sled. Only trouble is that he put the wrong leg in first so that when he swung the other leg in it meant he was facing the wrong way. This left the New Zealand team to slide down the course with three of them facing forwards and one facing backwards!

It’s a good story, and causes mirth whenever it’s mentioned. It would be even better if it was true. The thing is: it just might be.

Since New Zealand first entered an Olympic bobsleigh team, at Calgary in 1988, they have kept a constant eye out for strong, fast athletes whom they could train for their sport. Former squash champion Murray Lilley, a rugged, fit individual, was on the point of making the New Zealand team in the 1980s. Lilley was living in Canada by then and was chuffed at the prospect of becoming an Olympian, and narrowly missed the honour.

Unlike the luge and the skeleton, the bobsleigh has been a constant in the Olympics, with the single exception of Squaw Valley, 1960, when the Americans refused to build a course.

Early sleds were made of wood, but they were soon replaced by steel sleds that came to be known as bobsleds or bobsleighs because of the way crews bobbed back and forth to increase their speed on the straight stretches.

There are various weight restrictions in place now, which stops teams being packed with super-heavyweights. These days there is much more emphasis on athleticism.

For some reason, the bobsleigh seems to attract teams from countries you might not expect, and not just New Zealand. The Virgin Islands, Mexico, Brazil, American Samoa and, of course, the famous Jamaican team, have been among the unlikely Olympic entrants. It’s true that the sport is still dominated by the Germans, Swiss and Italians, but the fact that there are entries from such a range of countries adds to its appeal.

Unfortunately, New Zealand’s interest in this year’s Olympic bobsleigh was curtailed after the two-man event because of the high-speed crash the four had just before the end of their final training run. Going into the second-last corner at 130kmph, the New Zealanders’ sled turned and there was the horrific sight of smashing sled and bodies being hammered.

When everyone had picked themselves up, the damage was not as bad as it might have been. Alan Henderson, the driver, had a broken rib and moderate neck damage and has been forced to see out the Olympics wearing a neck brace. Matt Dallow had severe bruising, but Aaron Orangi and Stephen Harrison, while shaken, were not unduly stirred.

There was a initially whisper of a suggestion that perhaps the New Zealanders might try to sit it out and see how they felt in the morning. After all, rugby props and hookers operate with the constant thought that a serious neck injury is only a badly-formed scrum away. As former All Black captain Tana Umaga once famously said: “We’re not out here playing tiddlywinks.”

But soon a sensible decision was reached. Doctors examining the New Zealanders concluded they had to withdraw from competition. For one thing, Henderson, as the driver, is the person who has qualified the team to compete at the Olympics. If he wasn’t in the team, there would be no team.

So that was the bobsledders’ Olympic campaign. Lots of heaving and grunting, speed and thrills, but no satisfaction in the end. They leave the Olympics with their supporters unsure how good they were. Still a mystery.