By Verónica Suárez.
The Winter Olympics are about to start, and although they’ve been officially named Beijing 2022, they actually will be held in three cities of China: Beijing, Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou. Each city will host different events, but the Opening and Closing Ceremonies will take place in Beijing.
One of the most exciting parts for this year’s Winter Olympics is the fact that they will debut seven new events: Women’s Monobob, Men’s and Women’s Big Air (Freestyle Skiing), Mixed Team Snowboard Cross, Mixed Team Aerials, Mixed Team Short Track Relay, and Mixed Team Ski Jumping.
Women’s Monobob
Bobsledding grew to fame with the movie Cool Runnings, which tells the story of the Jamaican team that participated in the 1988 Olympic Games. Ever since then, most of the public has thought of bobsleigh as a four-person sport.
Nevertheless, bobsleigh has events with teams of four, two, and even just one athlete. These solo events are called monobob, where a single athlete has to push and pilot their sled through the course. The Olympic Committee has decided to make all the competitors have identical sleds as a way to reduce the technological advantages some countries could have.
The monobob is an event exclusive to women. The four-person competition is exclusive to men, and both genders can participate in the two-person competition.
Freeski Big Air
The Freeski Big Air is a popular competition from the Winter X Games, where each competitor goes down the course to perform a large jump. During the final, each athlete will have three attempts to perform tricks, where the best two attempts will count towards their score (but they have to perform tricks in each attempt).
This event will be open for both men and women.
Mixed Team Snowboard Cross
For this event, one man and one woman are paired together. The men start the race, and when each athlete crosses the finish line, their teammates are allowed to start the race from the beginning of the course. The result is decided when the women cross the finish line.
Mixed Team Aerials
Each team is formed of three athletes. It’s required that each team must have at least one man and one woman. This means that the third teammate can be either male or female.
The scores of each team member are added together to get the team score, with the competition taking place during multiple phases and rounds.
Mixed Team Short Track Relay
In this relay race, several countries will have four skaters (two men, two women) compete by doing 2.5 laps first and then 2 laps each.
This is the third relay event as part of the Winter Olympics’ schedule, and it’s the shortest with the others being women’s 3000m relays, and the men’s 5000m relay.
Mixed Team Ski Jumping
Each team consists of four athletes, which will jump in order: woman, man, woman, man. All of the individual jump scores will be added up to get the team’s score.
These brand-new events will be ones to watch during the Winter Olympics, but there are 109 medal events, so be sure to check the times for everything you want to watch! The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will start next Friday, February 4, and will end on Sunday, February 20.
Photos from IG: @beijing2022
