Sochi Olympics 2014: 6 new sports

Sochi Olympics 2014: 6 new sports

The International Olympic Committee at London meeting approved 6 new winter sports that will be presented at 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Thus, new Olympic sports in Sochi will become several winter disciplines, both traditional and those considered extreme until recently.

Among the traditional sports that are included in the official program of the Olympic Games in Sochi, perhaps, the most long-awaited is women ski jumping. This kind of sport should have been presented at the Olympic Games in Vancouver, but due to technical difficulties its premiere was moved for the Sochi Olympics.

Ski half-pipe is another discipline, which will be presented at 2014 Winter Olympics. And both for men and women. Inclusion of this sport in the Olympics was lobbied by freestyle community. One of the reasons was also popularity of this sport. It is worth noting that inclusion of this sport into the Olympic program has been discussed for a long time. Many experts believe that ski half-pipe is more circus than sport. However, it has all sports features, so Olympic Committee cannot continue to ignore an extremely popular sport.

Three remaining kinds, which have received the official Olympic ticket, are team championship in figure skating, mixed relay in biathlon, as well as team competition for luge.

And those kinds of winter sports that were included in the program of the Olympic Games in London promise to be not the last premieres of Sochi 2014. IOC plans to continue discussion on inclusion team championship in parallel slalom as well as another extreme sport - ski and snowboard slope-style.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 10/05/2011