Milan Cortina Winter Olympics: history, new events and Australian medal chances |
This year’s Winter Olympics will be held in northern Italy, starting on Friday.
They will be the most spread out in history: the two main competition sites – Milan and the winter resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo – are more than 400 kilometres apart.
Some 3500 athletes from 93 countries will compete in 16 sports for 245 gold medals.
Events are organised into broad categories, including ice sports (such as figure skating and curling), skiing and snowboarding (including moguls and halfpipe), Nordic events (such as cross-country and ski jumping) and sliding events (including skeleton and luge).
For the Milan Cortina games, the program has added eight new events designed to increase variety and gender parity.
The most significant addition is the sport of ski mountaineering, often referred to as “skimo”.
The sport requires competitors to ski uphill, transition to walking up steep climbs and then descend on skis.
The program will be the most gender-balanced winter games to date, with 47% women participation mainly thanks to the introduction of women’s double luge and a women’s large hill event in ski jumping.
While the Winter Olympics have been held in 21 cities in 13 different countries, climate change may limit the number of future host locations.
The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France in 1924.
Current events such as figure skating and........