How many sports are in the Winter Olympics?

By: Urszula G-K on 07/02/2010

For almost a century, every four years, the cold season is warmed by the joy and passion with which many people around the world watch the Winter Olympic Games. The winter sports are very special as they allow us to watch amazing performances in hostile weather conditions. They are a good opportunity to realize how far someone can go, how many obstacles he can beat, if he is driven by passion, talent and ambition. While watching the amazing performances of the ice and snow masters, most probably many of us have asked themselves how many sports are in the Winter Olympics. Most people, not very familiar with the topic and not fans of the winter sports, only can think of ski and skating if they have to answer this question. But things get more complicated than this.

It depends a lot on the moment when you raise the issue, because how many sports are in the Winter Olympics can vary from one edition to the other. The best way to find the correct answer is to get a hold of a list of the current or the next Winter Olympic Games. This is what I have done to count the sports for the next edition of the Winter Olympics, to be hold in 2010 in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. I found out that we will get to watch 15 sports this year. Pretty amazing, if we go back in time, to the first edition of the Winter Olympics. This one was held in 1924, in a small town from the French Alps, named Chamonix. If you were to ask then how many sports are in the Winter Olympics, the answer you would have received was: ten. Fewer then the sports included today on the list, but hey.it's been a long time. In fact, back then, the event was not even named Winter Olympics, but the International Winter Sports Week. A week which lasted eleven days, when people got to see athletes performing in competitions of 4-man bobsled, biathlon, curling, figure skating, hockey, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined skiing and speed skating. The competition received retroactively the name of Winter Olympic Games, being considered the first such event and setting a tradition in sports.

Coming back to how many sports are in the Winter Olympics in 2010 the answer is: fifteen. The sports included on the list in 2010 are divided in three categories:
. Ice sports category: bobsled, luge, skeleton, ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating, short track speed skating and curling.
. Alpine skiing and snowboard category, including: alpine, freestyle and snowboarding.
. Nordic events category which will include biathlon, cross country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined.

Now that we know how many sports are in the Winter Olympics we are more familiar with the competition we will get to see in February. The next step is to find out more about each sport and turn the next edition of the Olympics into an exciting experience.

Tags: sport