Olympics Rookie Lineup — The 8 new events of the Winter Olympics

1. Snowboard Slopestyle
   Having recently made the news when it NBC’s Bob Costa called it “Jackass-worthy stuff they invented and called Olympic Sports”, Slopestyle has recently received a lot of attention. The sport started to grow in the X Games and recently was added to the FIS Snowboard World Championships.The sport is based on a terrain park set on a mountainside course, allowing snowboarders to use different jumps, rails, and other objects to create big jumps and jaw dropping tricks. It’s stylish, fun, and will allow riders to showcase their unique style and creativity in a new setting.
2. Women’s Ski Jumping
   It may surprise you that we are still dealing with gender equality issues, but 2014 is a big year for the women’s ski team. The lesser known Lindsey Van has been competing and dominating in the U.S. for 15 years, but has never been to the Olympics because there was no women’s category-the IOC thought there weren’t enough competitors to create a competition. Having now more than tripled in size, the women are ready to show the world what they can do.
3. Snowboard Parallel Slalom
   Competing side by side, competitors race on side by side identical slalom courses around gates to reach the finish as fast as they can. The course is 320m in length with an 85m vertical drop, and athletes have to try to move fast around the gates without letting their turns slow down their speed. The competitors race once on each side of the course, with the time disadvantage being added as a delayed start to their second run. The rider that crosses the finish line of the second run first is the winner.
4. Ski Slopestyle
   Basically, the same style of competition as Snowboard Slopestyle but-surprise-it’s on skis! The event originated as a snowboard competition, but as skiing has evolved it too has adopted the creative and difficult slopestyle program. Having become one of the most popular events at the X games and boasting many trick skiers as competitors, it only made sense to add it to the Olympics.

1. Halfpipe Skiing
   In the last few years, skiing has caught up with snowboarding by adding some serious cool factors to the sport. Skis have become more technical in their design, with fashionable graphics, and new competitions have emerged. Although snowboard half pipe event has been in the Olympics since Nagano 1998, skiing was only accepted by the International Ski Federation after Vancouver 2010.There are also several new events that combine the performances of different athletes in new combined team events:

1. Figure Skating Team Event
   This one may be a bit confusing, but will definitely be beautiful to watch. Teams consist of 6 skaters, one male, one female, one pair and one ice dance couple. Technical, presentation score, as well as a aggregate discipline score will create a team total. The athletes that compete in this event will be under a lot of pressure as they are selected to compete in their individual competitions as well as represent their country in the team event, which may lead to some surprise performances by the athletes who are up to the challenge.
2. Luge Team Relay
   Luge is basically a high speed tobogganing race, and now they have created a team event for the competitors. Frankly, I’m surprised this has not been announced as Canada’s new national sport. Each team will have a men’s singles sled, a women’s singles sled, and a doubles sled. Each will slide down the track one after the other for a combined time once the third sled has crossed the finish line.

1. Biathlon Mixed Relay Considered one of the most difficult sports, biathlon requires competitors to cross-country ski in a race mixed that incorporates target shooting into the challenge. The teams will consist of two men and two women in a relay style, each team member shoots two rounds of 5 targets each, once standing and once lying down, and the missed targets result in a 150 metre penalty loop. The winning team will have the fastest overall combined time.

Which new sport are you looking forward to the most? Let me know in the comments below or on Facebook.