Most Popular Winter Olympic Sports

The Winter Olympics include many entertaining and awe-inspiring sports. Hockey, speed and figure skating and skiing are mainstays of the winter games a few events are just plain weird for a number of reasons. The top five strangest winter Olympic events are deadly, deadly boring, that you have to wonder at the mind that thought them up in the first place.

The Winter Olympics have a reputation for showcasing daredevil athletes careening across ice and snow with little regard for the powers of gravity. The spectacular crashes of downhill skiing appear to delight spectators as much as the grace and artistry of figure skating. In fact, aside from the stories about the big name star athletes in the Games, much of the news highlights during the Games will cover the most impressive crashes, falls and wipe-outs of the day.

Ice Hockey

Ice hockey's origins are a bit more obscure than of its counterparts at the Games. Games that evolved into the similar ice sport of bandy have been played since the reports of a hockey-like game exist in the history of Eastern Canada's indigenous Mikmaq people.

Short Track Speed Skating

Traditional speed skating involves pairs of timed skaters making their way around an oval track it was common for indoor races with shorter tracks to feature mass starts where all the racers took off at once. The mass starts and the tracks that had been shortened to accommodate indoor arenas led to exciting races, and in 1967 the International Skating Union began to recognize the event.

Bonnie the Great

Bonnie Blair embodied everything an Olympian should: humility, sportsmanship and excellence. From 1988-94, Blair owned the sprints in speedskating won gold in the 500 and bronze in the 1,000 in Calgary in '88. She then swept both races at the '92 Albertville Games and then again in Lillehammer in '94.

Heiden makes history at Lake Placid

Eric Heiden is the best all-around speed skater in history. Any arguments to the are foolish. Check this out. At the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, Heiden won gold in all five men's races, from the sprints to the distance.

Bobsledding 

Bobsledding (or bobsleighing), an Olympic regular since the 1924 games in Chamonix, is the perfect activity for those who crave speed. Happily, you needn’t train for years on end to give it a whirl head to Utah Olympic Park.