WATCH: Snowboard slopestyle will be making it’s Olympic debut in Sochi
Twelve new events are making their debut at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Here’s a look at what they are and how they work.
Snowboard slopestyle (Men and Women)
This longtime X Games event features high-flying acrobatics and technical moves. Athletes descend a 655-metre course featuring a variety of jumps and rails, which the snowboarders use to perform tricks, like sliding down rails and performing flips and spins.
Athletes are scored based on the variety, technical difficulty and “style” of their tricks. They do two runs and the highest-scoring run is counted for that round.
Canadians to watch:
Ski slopestyle (Men and Women)
Similar to snowboard slopestyle, the athletes ski down a 565-metre hill covered in jumps and rails. They perform tricks and high-flying jumps, often skiing backward (or “switch”) down parts of the course.
Athletes are scored on the variety, execution, style, difficulty and progression of their tricks. They do two runs and keep the higher score for that round.
Canadians to watch:
- Kaya Turski
- Yuki Tsubota
- Alex Bellemare
Biathlon mixed relay (Mixed event)
Like other biathlon events, the biathlon mixed relay combines cross-country skiing and target shooting. In this event, teams of two men and two women compete.
Each competitor skis one leg of the four-section course, switch off to a teammate between each section. The women ski the first two legs on a 6-kilometre course and the men ski the last two 7.5-kilometre legs.
The biathlon is a timed race. But if an athlete fails to hit five targets in a shooting section, he or she must ski a 150-metre penalty loop, costing them precious seconds.
Canadians to watch:
Video courtesy of the Official Olympic YouTube Channel
Women’s ski jumping
After years of controversy and a human rights complaint, women’s ski jumping is finally on the bill in Sochi.
Ski jumping is a surprisingly complicated event to score. Jumpers are awarded points based on distance and style. Female ski-jumpers in Sochi will start with 60 points and gain two points for every metre they jump farther than 95 metres. They lose two points for every metre less than 95.
Five judges also mark each jump for style on a scale from 1 to 20. The lowest and highest scores are discarded and the remaining three added together to make up the total style score, which is added to distance for the total jump score.
Canadians to watch:
Luge team relay (Mixed event)
In luge, competitors slide down an icy chute feet-first, on their backs, on a tiny sled.
In the team relay lugers slide one after the other, aiming for the lowest combined time. Each team is composed of three sleds – a single man, a single woman, and a doubles sled, which can be two men, two women or a combination of both.
As each sled reaches the bottom, athletes hit a button that opens the gate for their next teammate at the top of the hill.
The track in Sochi is 1,384 metres long, with a vertical drop of 125 metres. Lugers can reach speeds higher than 130 km/h on curves, according to the Canadian Olympic Committee, though some news reports suggest the Sochi track was built with slower speeds in mind because of the accident at the Vancouver Olympics where Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed.
Canadians to watch:
Video courtesy of the Official Olympic YouTube Channel
Ski halfpipe (Men and Women)
Like the snowboard halfpipe, which made its Olympic debut in 1998 in Nagano, in ski halfpipe athletes slide back and forth along a semicircular track, performing tricks as they reach the top of each side.
Skiers are scored based on the technical difficulty and execution of their tricks, as well as their use of the halfpipe. In each round they make two runs down the course and keep the highest score.
Canadians to watch:
Figure skating team event (Mixed event)
This new event vastly increases the amount of figure skating at the Olympics. Selected skaters compete separately in the team event and their individual events – performing the same routines twice.
Teams are composed of one man, one woman, one pair and one ice dance couple. Points are awarded for each routine – 10 points for first, 9 for second and so on to 10th place. The team with the highest total score wins.
Canadians to watch:
Video courtesy of the Official Olympic YouTube Channel
Snowboard parallel slalom
In this snowboard event, athletes race head-to-head down parallel tracks, zig-zagging around flags. They make two runs, taking turns on the left-hand and on the right-hand track.
The slower racer from the first run keeps his or her time disadvantage on the second run – meaning his or her competitor gets a head start down the hill. First to cross the finish line on the second run wins.
The competition works in a knockout format. Competitors race head to head and the loser from each race is eliminated.
Canadians to watch:
Video courtesy of the Official Olympic YouTube Channel
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