Some Of The Sports That Will Be Showcased At The 2010 Winter Olympic Games
Posted in Fly Fishing Gear on the January 24, 2010
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 fewer choices for winter sports played as in the summer Olympics. There are also less countries and athletes competing as some countries do not have these sports or the weather or terrain to sustain a winter sport. This does not always stop athletes, however, as proven by the Jamaican bobsledding team years ago. They took fast runners and athletes from Jamaica and taught them how to bobsled using a wooden sled on wheels. Their entry into the Olympics was a great crowd pleaser. This article mentions a few of the different events at the Olympics Games performed by some athletes such as 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 favorite fan spectator sports to witness at the Olympic games. One of the most famous gold medal final hockey games was the 1980 game of the USA against 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 in the Olympics. Other forms of skating sports that are popular is speed skating, ice dancing and figure skating. These popular competitions bring in large audiences.
The USA team has always had top performers in these events as well with Apolo Anton Ohno skating in his third Olympic games this winter 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 the Olympics.
Some of the sports that spectators enjoy watching are the ones that they only get to witness on the Olympics such as bobsledding, luge or curling. These less popular sports have their spotlight during the Olympic games where they can exhibit their abilities and talents in sports that are not normally played in every town or state. Bobsledding and luge are exciting and fast races where a sled races down an icy tube to the end. In order to find athletes for these sports some coaches visit other states to seek out younger kids that could be a good fit for that sport. This happened in Colorado where the US luge team put on a demo 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 Northern Minnesota 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.