LAKE PLACID, N.Y. // As he slipped into the bullet-shaped black bobsled and stared down the mile-long icy chute, Stephen Colbert faced his moment of truthiness.

He didn’t blink or scream -- so he said -- but the Comedy Central host did admit to getting a pounding “like losing the worst snowball fight of your life,” after riding a four-man sled driven by world champion Steve Holcomb and taking a solo skeleton slide.

As the bobsled crossed the finish line and slowed to a stop, Colbert raised his arms above his head to the chants of U-S-A from the crowd remaining after the World Cup competition. He helped hand out medals and stood at attention as the national anthem played, his reddish-orange speed suit clashing with, well, almost everything.

The segment for The Colbert Report will be one in a series of Olympic bits spun off from the host’s promise to raise money for the U.S. speed skating team.

When asked which ride he preferred, Colbert pointed at the skeleton sled and said, “That one ... it was slower.

- Candus Thomson

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