Winter Olympics (Turin 06)

As most of you already probably know the Winter Olympics are one of the major sporting events in the sporting calendar, and in 2006 the games are in Turin, Italy. Thing is though are we actually expected to win anything?...well err…no not really although you never know. We would have more of a chance if we actually had mountains with snow on and more ice rinks instead of the odd snowdome and the odd ice rink. In fact the only medal we won at the 2002 games in Salt Lake City was a gold in women’s curling…not the most well known sport but nevertheless a medal on the table. What is really worrying is that fact that when I did a quick survey of 20 people they could come up with Torvill and Dean as the only winter Olympic athletes past or present, more worrying than that is the fact that 3 didn’t even know the sport! (figure skating).

Anyhow the sports involved in the Winter Olympics are as follows and there isn’t many, in fact about ¼ of what there is at the summer games:

Curling
Biathlon
Bobsleigh (Skeleton/Bobsleigh)
Ice Hockey
Luge
Skating(Figure skating/Speed skating)
Ski-ing (Alpine/Cross country/Nordic combined/Freestyle)
Ski Jumping
Snowboarding
Biathlon-A mix of Cross country ski-ing with shooting every 1000m
Curling-A kind of bowls for ice except instead of a jack there is a giant archery board painted in the ice.
Bobsleigh-a few guys in a giant reinforced sledge slide down a hill at mind blowing mph.
Skeleton-Jumping head first down a hill on a tiny sledge like a dinner tray on your own.
Ice Hockey- Read my review in Local other sports.
Luge-Like skeleton just you go down feet first.
Figure Skating-Dancing on ice!
Speed skating-exactly what the title suggests! Skating round the ice rink as fast you can.
Ski-ing- Either as fast as you can down a hill, hitting the flags. As many tricks as you can do to impress judges in the time limit, or all about endurance.
Ski Jumping- Going down a ramp and jumping off the end, sometimes jumping in excess of 200m! considered one of the most dangerous sports!
Snow board- Like freestyle ski-ing (tricks) or alpine ski-ing (speed)