List of Winter Olympic Sports

Current Winter Olympic Sports (2010)

The Winter Olympics Sports are categorized into three main categories: (1) ice sports, (2) alpine, skiing and snowboarding events, and (3) Nordic events. In each of these sports categories there are more events. From the total of 15 sports, there were 86 individual events at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Ice Sports

Alpine, Skiing and Snowboarding Events

Alpine Skiing
Freestyle Skiing (Aerials, Moguls and Ski Cross)
Snowboarding (Parallel Giant Slalom, Halfpipe and Snowboard Cross)

Nordic Events

Biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting)
Cross-Country Skiing
Ski Jumping
Nordic Combined (ski jumping and cross country skiing)

Discontinued sports and Events

Here are just some of the sports or events that were once part of the Winter Olympics.

Military patrol (a precursor to the biathlon) was a medal sport in 1924. It was also a demonstration sport in 1928, 1936 and 1948.
In figure skating, an event called Men's special figures was on the program only once in 1908.

Demonstration sports

The following sports have been part of the Winter Olympic program as a demonstration sport at some stage.

Skijöring (skiing behind horses): 1928.
Winter Pentathlon (X-country & downhill skiing/pistol/fencing/horse riding) 1948
Dog Sled Racing: 1932
Curling: 1932 & 1988
Ice stock sport (a German variant to curling): 1936 & 1964.
Military Patrol: (Led to Biathlon in 1960) 1928,1936,1948
Bandy: (Soccer on ice) 1952
Short track speed skating started as a demonstration sport in 1988, before becoming a full sport from 1992 onwards.
Speed skiing: 1992
Disabled events in alpine (1984 and 1988) and Nordic skiing (1988 only)
Synchronized skating: 2002
Snowshoeing: 2002

Other Winter Sports Trivia

There are four Winter Olympic Games Sports that are held indoors: Speed skating, figure skating, curling, and ice hockey.
Two sports have mixed events (males and females together): figure staking and luge. Two sports are for males only: Nordic Combined and Ski Jumping. More about women at the Winter Olympics.
Cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been competed at every Winter Olympics since 1924.

Comments

I love watching the Olympics on TV. I wish that I could join the Olympics (rom Tina Monias, May 2011)
The winter olympics are cool (Jan 2011)
I think the sports are really helping the athletes all over the world (from aliza, Jan 2011)
It's truely awesome. Winter olympics are really good (from aashiaana, Jan 2011)
I was wondering if the winter Olympic board are looking at adding a fast and growing sport that I think should be on the big stage. This sport that I am talking about is broomball, and I love this game and broomball international stages its world championships every couple of years in different countries. Like I said earlier, awesome game and the people of the world need to see this game on display. (from nick garofalo, Dec 2010)

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Women and Winter Olympic Sports
Winter Sports Clipart
Discontinued Summer Olympic Sports