Name: Every Winter Olympic sport explained in 7 minutes
Uploaded: 2026-02-23T04:00:54.000Z
Duration: 7 min 11 s
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The Winter Olympics feature some of the strangest and most fun sports of any global sporting event.

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There are 16 of them, and you'd be forgiven for not understanding what's going on at times.

So we've put together a brief explainer of each event to help you enjoy them all at Milan, Cortina and beyond.

To start with, we're going to divide the sports into three groups.

These aren't official groupings, but they will help us break down the multitude of events at Milan, Cortina.

Let's start with the track events, which all take place on the same track.

First up is skeleton, where athletes jump onto a sledge and guide it headfirst down a course, steering only through slight shifts of the head, shoulders, knees and toes, at speeds of up to 140km per hour.

They do so four times, and the athlete with the lowest cumulative time wins.

Luge is relatively similar, except athletes go down the track on their backs on a slightly lighter sledge called a luge, at speeds of over 150 kilometers per hour.

There's also a doubles luge, where athletes lie on top of each other on the luge for better air aerodynamics.

The final track sport is the bobsleigh, where athletes go down the track in a bobsleigh steered by a pilot who pulls on two metal rings.

There's the four man bobsleigh, the two man bobsleigh, the two woman bobsleigh, and

The winner across all formats is the sledge with the fastest total time after four runs.

And probably the most famous, of course, is ice hockey, where teams of six players at a time compete to score the most goals across three 20 minute periods.

Then there's curling, where each match consists of 10 rounds or ends.

the team who gets their stone closest to the middle of the bullseye looking circle, known as the house, scores a point.

There are bonus points available for each stone you have closer to the middle than the opposition's closest stone, and

If there are no stones in the house by the finish of the end, then no one gets any points.

The team with the highest cumulative score by the finish of the ten ends is the winner.

Okay, next, there are two types of speed skating, so speed skating and short track speed skating.

They might sound similar, but there are key differences.

Firstly, the short track is 111.12 meters, whereas the speed skating track is 400 meters long.

in short track, they race in groups of five or seven across individual events, whereas in speed skating, they race in pairs and swap lanes every lap to ensure equal distances are covered.

speed skating has a team pursuit event where two teams of three skaters race, starting at opposite sides, and

also a mass start event where up to 24 athletes race across 16 laps.

Okay, now the final rink sport is figure skating, where athletes perform routines on ice, which are scored by judges based on technique, composition, skating skills and presentation.

There are individual events and two types of pairs events.

The first is pairs skating, where you'll see the throws and the lifts.

And the second is ice dance, where the focus is more on intricate footwork and choreography.

And finally, there's a team event where athletes from 10 nations will compete in each of the aforementioned disciplines.

They're ranked from 1 to 10 in each event, and

the country with the highest total score at the end is the winner.

Let's start with alpine skiing, and there are four disciplines within this sport.

In slalom, athletes ski down courses through tightly packed gates to test agility and quick reflexes.

The skiers can touch or not touch the gates on their way down, but

missing them entirely will almost always result in disqualification.

Athletes do one run each down two different courses, and the athlete with the quickest combined time wins.

In giant slalom, the gates are much wider.

This allows athletes to go much faster as they can build up more momentum, but

it also tests their technical ability to pull off turns at high speeds.

Like the slalom, you get two runs down different courses, and the quickest combined time is the winner.

Super G, which is short for supergiant slalom, has even wider gaits, meaning even faster speeds.

Skiers are disqualified if they miss even one gate.

And unlike the previous two events, there's only one run down the course.

And finally, downhill has the largest distances between the gates, leading to the fastest speeds.

In alpine skiing, and like Super G, there's just one run.

Next up is freestyle skiing, which has seven disciplines.

In moguls, athletes ski down a steep course full of bumps, combining turns, jumps, aerial manoeuvres and speed.

In dual moguls, two athletes compete against each other on the same track.

Ski cross involves athletes racing down a course filled with bumps and jumps.

In aerials, skiers launch themselves off a ramp and into the air, performing aerial tricks before landing on a slope.

Judges then give them a score based on air, form and landing, which is multiplied by the jump's pre assigned degree of difficulty.

The winner is the skier with the highest score.

In slope style, athletes navigate a course with a variety of obstacles including rails and various jumps, and

then are judged on the breadth, originality and quality of their stunts.

In halfpipe, competitors ski down a semi cylindrical slope while performing tricks that are scored on amplitude, difficulty, variety, execution and progression.

Whereas in big air, athletes ride down a slope towards a massive ramp before soaring into the air where they perform tricks that are scored from 0 to 100 based on difficulty, execution, amplitude, landing and progression.

Snowboarding has its own versions of disciplines from alpine and freestyle skiing and these are the giant slalom, cross, half pipe, slopestyle and big air.

And then in ski jump, athletes ski down a ramp at speeds of up to 100km h before performing a jump that is scored on distance and style, with points being added or deducted based on the wind and how high the start gate is.

The sport is split into normal and large hill events, but

across both disciplines athletes have two jumps and the winner is the one with the highest combined points.

Cross country skiing is long distance skiing that's split by technique.

In the classic event you glide along pre made snow tracks and in the freestyle event you push your skis from side to side to make your own path.

The skiathlon discipline combines both techniques in one race with 10km of classic being followed by 10km of freestyle.

A nordic combined meanwhile is a combination of both ski jump and cross country skiing.

There are normal and large hill versions of the sport, but

across both the cross country skiing distance remains 10 km.

Biathlon combines cross country skiing with shooting.

Athletes will ski for a distance before stopping to shoot at a target while lying down or prone and while standing.

The width of the target while Prone is just 45mm and while standing it's 115mm.

For each missed target, athletes have to ski around a 150 metre penalty loop, except in individual biathlon where you get one minute added to your time.

And finally we have the Winter Olympics newest sport which is ski mountaineering or skimo.

Athletes go up uphill sections using skins on their skis to stop them sliding back down.

Then at the steepest parts, they take off their skis and place them in a backpack while climbing the mountain on foot before taking the skins off their skis at the top of the mountain and skiing back down.