The 2010 Winter Olympic Games are just around the corner with athletes from all around the globe preparing to compete for the gold medal. The winter Olympics are quite a bit smaller than the summer Olympics as there are less options for winter sports played as in the summer Olympics. There are also fewer countries and athletes competing as some countries don’t have these sports or the winter climate or terrain to sustain this type of sport. This does not always prevent athletes from competing, however, as evidenced by the Jamaican bobsledding team years ago. They took strong runners and athletes from Jamaica and taught them how to bobsled using a wooden sled on wheels. Their initial particpation into the Olympics was a big crowd pleaser. This article mentions a few of the different events at the Olympics Games performed by some athletes like the telluride ski instructor that teaches telluride ski lessons and will be participating in the giant Slalom ski event.
Ice hockey is one of the big fan spectator sports to see at the Olympic events. One of the most famous gold medal final hockey games was the 1980 match of the USA versus Russia where the US won in the final seconds. It had always been a sport for just men but now women’s ice hockey is also an Olympic sport. Other types of skating sports that are popular is speed skating, ice dancing and figure skating. These popular events draw large crowds.
The USA team has always had top athletes in these sports as well with Apolo Anton Ohno competing in his third Olympic games this year in speed short track skating. Figure skating greats in the past have been Dorothy Hamill, Scott Hamilton and Nancy Kerrigan who missed out on winning gold when her competitions boyfriend hurt her knee in an attack the day before competition.
Some of the sports that spectators enjoy watching are the ones that they only get to see on the Olympics like bobsledding, luge or curling. These lesser known and popular sports have their spotlight during the Winter Olympics where they can show off their abilities and talents in sports that are not normally played in every state or country. Bobsledding and luge are exciting and fast races where a sled speeds down an icy tube to the end. In order to attract athletes for these sports some coaches go to other states to seek out younger kids that may have an interest or knack for it. This happened in Colorado where members of the USA Luge organization put on a exhibition and got some interested kids involved. Two of the athletes competed in the 2008 Olympic Games as a result of this exhibition. Curling is a sport that is mainly played in the norhtern midwest and is a calmer sport very similar to bocce ball but on ice.
Downhill ski racing and Nordic skiing are also big sports in the winter Olympics. The downhill skiers and snowboarders love speed and an element of danger and the Nordic skier have extreme stamina and endurance.
