Paying Attention: Slopestyle Skiing is new to the Winter Olympics in 2014. It’s the skiing equivalent of slopestyle snowboarding, a multi-facet aerobatics competition which has already run. Depending on your coordination, you might consider slopestyle skiing an order of magnitude more difficult than the snowboarding version simply because you have two boards under your feet …
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Olympic Briefing: The Luge
Press Clippings: One of the more unusual downhill sports at the upcoming Olympics is the Luge. No doubt you’ve seen it before and said…”what the hell?”. The luge is a small sled that can hold one or two people and is used to run a prepared course, down an icey chute, much like a bobsled run. …
Olympic Briefing: The History of Bobsledding
Paying Attention: Bob sledding is one of the glamour sports of the Winter Olympics. The History of Olympic Bobsledding video (above) shows the growth of the technology of the sleds and the development of the tracks, but the legendary personality who did so much to make the sport popular, the peerless Eugenio Monti, is not singled …
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Olympic Briefing: Snowboard Half Pipe
Paying Attention: The snowboard half pipe (joined at this year’s Sochi Winter Olympics by skiing half pipe) is the equivalent of the dry land half pipe beloved by skateboarders. The idea is deceptively simple: drop in from the top of the pipe, get up some speed, go over the top on the opposite edge, do …
Olympic Briefing: Ski Jumping
Paying Attention: Stand at the top of a hill–man made. There are two choices of hill: Normal (i.e. steep and long) and Large(very steep and very long). Either one is capable of inducing a serious fright to even the bravest soul. Next, strap on a pair of special Ski Jumping skis. They’re going to be …
Olympic Briefing: Bobsled
Press Clippings: In an effort to get everyone pumped up for the Sochi Olympics,we’ll continue posting videos that highlight the top sports. Today, let’s go with something that always gets the adrenaline pumping: Bobsled. This time, with a twist, in a run with a bobsled designed/produced by German car maker BMW for the US Team …
Olympic Briefing: The Downhill
Olympic Briefing: Speedskating
Paying Attention: Speed skating is like running the 200 meter dash on ice. The sport is conducted on a sheet of ice, and is very, very technique driven. There are two forms of speed skating practiced in the Olympics: long track and short track. Long track is more graceful, mano-a-mano competition; short track is a …
Olympic Briefing: Moguls
Paying Attention: If you spend much time on a ski mountain, you either learn to love moguls or to avoid them. The mogul skiers who make it to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics have learned to love them. Mogul skiing is technique, strength, and timing heavy. Mogul skiers blast through the bumps by using their …
Olympic Briefing: Freestyle
Paying Attention: Freestyle skiing is a multi-disciplinary sport that includes moguls, aerials, ski cross, half-pipe, and slope style skiing (and insurance form processing). It is extremely demanding technically and can be very treacherous physically for competitors. This wiki has complete background information on the sport as staged at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Competitions are …