Winter Camping

What Types Of Athletes Will Be Competing For The Gold Medal At The 2010 Winter Games

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games are rapidly approaching with athletes from all around the globe preparing to compete for the first place medal. The winter Olympics are quite a bit smaller than the summer Olympics as there are less options for winter sports played as in the summer Olympics. There are also less countries and athletes competing as several countries don’t have these sports or the weather or terrain to sustain a winter sport. This does not always stop athletes, however, as evidenced by the Jamaican bobsledding team years ago. They took fast runners and athletes from Jamaica and taught them how to bobsled using a wooden cart 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 like the telluride ski instructor that teaches telluride ski lessons and will be competing in the giant Slalom 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 match of the USA against Russia where the US came out on top. It had always male only event but now women’s ice hockey is also an Olympic sport. Other types of skating sports that are popular is speed skating, ice dancing and figure skating. These popular events draw large crowds.

The American team has always had top performers in these events as well with Apolo Anton Ohno competing 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 like bobsledding, luge or curling. These lesser known and popular sports have their spotlight during the Winter Olympics where they can exhibit their abilities and talents in sports that are not traditionally played in every state or country. Bobsledding and luge are thrilling and fast races where a sled races down an icy tube to the finish. In order to attract athletes for these sports some coaches go to other states to seek out younger kids that could be a good fit for that sport. This happened in Colorado where members of the USA Luge organization put on a demo and got some interested children involved. Two of the athletes competed in the last Olympic Games as a result of this exhibition. Curling is a sport that is mainly played in the norhtern midwest and is a slower more strategic sport very similar to bocce ball but on ice.

Downhill ski racing and cross country skiing are also big sports in the winter Olympics. The downhill skiers and snowboarders love speed and an element of danger and the cross country skier have great stamina and endurance.