Winter Sports: Winter Sports

"Winter Sports", in general term it refers to a sport that is played on ice or snow. Winter Sports is commonly played during winter. Ice Hockey, Figure Skating, Skiing, Snowboarding and Sledding events, such as Luge, Skeleton, and Bobsleigh are considered as main winter sports. Other common winter sports include Ski-boarding, Mono-skiing, Skwal and Snowmobiling. Many of these winter games are included in the Winter Olympic Games.

The first Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Some of the original sports were alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating. Other events have been added as time went on, and some of them, such as luge, short track speed skating, and freestyle skiing have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic programme. Others, such as speed skiing, bandy, and skijoring were demonstration sports but were never incorporated as Olympic sports.

The Winter Olympic Games are a multi-sport event held every four years. Here are detail list of winter sports, and an asterisk indicates that a particular sport is included in the Winter Olympic Games, as of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Ice Skating

Figure skating *
Speed skating *
Synchronized skating
Skeet skating
Simple skating

Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, travelling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water such as lakes and rivers.

Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork like steps and turns and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level (senior), and at local, national, and international competitions. The International Skating Union (ISU) regulates international figure skating judging and competitions. Figure skating is an official event in the Winter Olympic Games. In languages other than English, figure skating is usually referred to by a name that translates as "artistic skating".

Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating.

Synchronized skating a large and fast-growing discipline, consists of 8—20 (the number of skaters on a team often depends on the level) athletes skating on ice at one time moving as one flowing unit at high speeds. This discipline of figure skating was originally called precision skating in North America because of the emphasis on maintaining precise formations and timing of the group. For a synchronized team to flow in unison, individual skaters must be competent at a variety of skating skills, including speed, footwork and ice presence. The team performs a program set to music, with required formations including circles, lines, blocks, wheels, and intersections. The teams are required to perform step sequences involving a number of various turns such as twizzles, counters and rockers and simpler turns like three-turns, mohawks and choctaws.

Skiing

Alpine skiing *
Biathlon *
Cross-country skiing *
Freestyle skiing *
Mogul skiing*
Newschool skiing
Nordic combined *
Ski archery
Skiboarding
Skibob
Skijoring
Ski jumping *
Snowshoe
Speed skiing
Telemark skiing

Alpine skiing (downhill skiing) is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with nordic skiing – such as cross-country, ski jumping and Telemark – in which skiers use free-heel bindings.

Alpine skiing may take place at a ski resort where mechanical ski lifts have been installed to transport skiers up the mountain and where snow is groomed, avalanches are controlled and trees are cut to create trails. Alternatively, Alpine skiers may pursue the sport in less controlled environments; this practice is variously referred to as ski touring, backcountry skiing or extreme skiing.

Biathlon is a term used to describe any sporting event made up of two disciplines. However, biathlon usually refers specifically to the winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Other popular variants include summer biathlon, which combines cross-country running with riflery, modern biathlon and biathle, which combine running with swimming.

The sport has its origins in an exercise for Norwegian soldiers, as an alternative training for the military. The world's first known ski club, the Trysil Rifle and Ski Club, was formed in Norway in 1861 to promote national defense at the local level.

Cross-country skiing (commonly abbreviated XC skiing) is a winter sport in which participants propel themselves across snow-covered terrain using skis and poles. It is popular in many countries with large snowfields, primarily Northern Europe, Canada, and Alaska. Skiing can also be done indoors in ski tunnels.

Freestyle skiing is an acrobatic form of technical and aerial skiing. It is organized into a number of different disciplines, although there are no impartial authorities for managing the sport internationally. Freestyle skiing first began to be taken seriously in the 1960s and early 1970s, when it was often known as "hot-dogging.
Freestyle skiing began in the 1930s, when Norwegian skiers began performing acrobatics during alpine and cross-country training. Later, non-competitive professional skiing exhibitions in the United States featured performances of what would later be called freestyle.

Mogul skiing is a type of freestyle skiing where skiers ski terrain characterized by a large number of different bumps, or moguls. Moguls are a series of bumps on a trail formed when skiers push the snow into mounds or piles as they execute short-radius turns. They can also be constructed (seeded) on a slope for freestyle skiing competitions or practice runs. Once formed, a naturally occurring mogul tends to grow as skiers follow similar paths around it, further deepening the surrounding grooves known as troughs. Since skiing tends to be a series of linked turns, moguls form together to create a bump field. At most ski resorts certain pistes (trails) are groomed infrequently or left completely ungroomed to allow moguls to develop.

Freeskiing or Newschool skiing is a popular style of downhill skiing. The sport involves advanced tricks which are often performed on a variety of natural and man-made features. Freeskiing has seen huge growth in popularity since the early first decade of the 21st century. The sport has roots in freestyle skiing, Alpine skiing and snowboarding but is now widely accepted as a sport of its own.

Nordic combined is a winter sport in which athletes compete in both cross-country skiing and ski jumping. It is combination of the cross-country skiing and ski jumping, and oppose to Alpine skiing the heel of the boot cannot be fixed to the ski.

Skiboarding is a winter sport which combines elements of skating, snowboarding, and skiing. Skiboards are used and worn in conjunction with standard ski boots that connect to the skiboards with use of a binding. Skiboards can be grouped into two general categories. Regular skiboards are generally 75-110 cm long, symmetrical, twin tipped, and wider than traditional skis. Longboard skiboards range from 110cm but are typically no longer than 130cm. In addition, they can have one of two different types of bindings.

Skibobbing is a winter sport involving a bicycle-type frame attached to skis instead of wheels. Although the original idea for a bicycle with skis was patented as early as 1892, and skibobbing had been a form of transportation in the Alps, it wasn't until 1954 that the first international race was held. Seven years later, the FISB (Fédération Internationale de Skibob) was formed, which since 1967 has held an annual Skibobbing World Championship. Although skibobs are often called Ski Bikes and Snow Bikes, the sport should not be confused with snowbiking, which is the sport or recreation of cycling on snow.

Originally, skibobbing was one of the very few methods by which people without strength in their knees could alpine ski, but it soon became a popular sport amongst the physically able, too.

Skijoring ('skē-jȯr-iŋ) is a winter sport where a person on skis is pulled by a horse, a dog (or dogs) or a motor vehicle. It is derived from the Norwegian word skikjøring meaning ski driving. Skijoring with a dog is a sport in which a dog (or dogs), assist a cross-country skier. From one to three dogs are commonly used. The cross-country skier provides power with skis and poles, and the dog adds additional power by running and pulling. The skier wears a skijoring harness, the dog wears a sled dog harness, and the two are connected by a length of rope.

Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long (260 to 275 centimetres (100 to 108 in)). Ski jumping is predominantly a winter sport, performed on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games, but can also be performed in summer on artificial surfaces – porcelain or frost rail track on the inrun, plastic on the landing hill.

Speed skiing is the sport of skiing downhill in a straight line as quickly as possible. It is one of the fastest non-motorized sports on land. Speed skiers wear dense foam fairings on their lower legs and aerodynamic helmets to increase streamlining. Their ski suits are made from air-tight latex or have a polyurethane coating to reduce wind resistance, with only a mandatory back protector to give some protection in the case of a crash. Speed skiing is practiced on steep, specially designed courses one kilometer long. There are approximately thirty of these courses worldwide, many of them at high altitudes to minimize air resistance.

Telemark skiing is a term used for skiing using the Telemark turn. It is also known as "free heel skiing." Unlike alpine skiing equipment, the skis used for telemarking have a binding that only connects the boot to the ski at the toes, just as in cross-country skiing. Telemark turns are led with the heel flat on the outside ski (the downhill ski at the end of the turn), while the inside (uphill) ski is pulled beneath the skier's body with a flexed knee and raised heel.

Sledding

Sports that use sleds going down ice tracks or pulled by something:

Airboard
Bobsled *
Dogsled racing
Ice Blocking
Luge *
Skeleton *
Wok racing

Airboarding is a recreational winter sport which uses an Airboard. Airboard is the first commercially marketed single-person hovercraft/hoverboard.

Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of two or four make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled that are combined to calculate the final score.

Sled dog racing (sometimes termed dog sled racing) is a winter dog sport most popular in the Arctic regions of the United States, Canada, Russia, and some European countries. It involves the timed competition of teams of sleddogs that pull a sled with the dog driver or musher standing on the runners. The team completing the marked course in the least time is judged the winner.

Sled dog races include "sprint" races over relatively short distances of 4 to 25 miles, mid-distance races from 28 to 200 miles, or long-distance races of 200 to over 1000 miles.

Luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Luge is also the name of the sport which involves racing with such sleds. It is a competition in which these sleds race against a timer. Artificial Tracks have specially designed and constructed banked curves plus walled-in straights. Most tracks are artificially refrigerated, but artificial tracks without artificial cooling also exist .Tracks tend to be very smooth.

Skeleton is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5g. It originated in St. Moritz, Switzerland as a spin-off from the popular British sport of Cresta Sledding. While skeleton "sliders" use equipment similar to that of cresta "riders", the two sports are different: while skeleton is run on the same track used by bobsleds and luge, cresta is run on cresta-specific sledding tracks only. Neither the skeleton sled or Cresta toboggan have a steering or braking mechanism although the cresta riders use rakes on their boots in addition to shifting body weight to help steer and brake.

Wok racing has been developed by the German TV host and entertainer Stefan Raab: Modified Chinese woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsled track. There are competitions for one-person-woksleds and four-person-woksleds, the latter using four woks per sled.

The typical racing woks are the ordinary round-bottomed Chinese pans, usually directly imported from China. The only modifications are that the bottom is reinforced with an epoxy filling and the edges of the wok are coated with polyurethane foam to avoid injuries. Four-person woksleds consist of two pairs of woks, each of them is held together by a rounded frame. The two pairs are connected by a coupling. Due to the rather risky nature of the sport the participants wear heavy protective gear, usually similar to ice hockey equipment. To further reduce friction and the risk of injuries, the athletes wear ladles under their feet.

Snowboarding

Alpine snowboarding *
Snowboard cross *
Freestyle snowboarding *
Slalom *

Alpine snowboarding is a small niche of the sport of snowboarding. It is typically practised with hard plastic shelled boots called "hardboots" and carving or race-oriented snowboards. Loosely, it is the pursuit of snowboarding mostly on the ground, in the forward direction, with the primary goal of making clean, smooth turns. The term "alpine" has come to be mostly associated with snowboarding in hardboots, as they are the choice for people seeking the most efficient carved turn. Lately, the terms "Alpine Snowboarding" and "Hardboot Snowboarding", or just "Hardbooting" have become synonymous.

Snowboard cross (also Snowboarder X, SBX, Boardercross, Boarder-X or BX) is a snowboard competition in which a group of snowboarders (usually four) start simultaneously atop an inclined course, then race to reach the finish line first.

Snowboard cross courses are typically quite narrow and includes cambered turns, gap jumps, berms, drops, and steep and flat sections designed to challenge the riders' ability to stay in control. It is not uncommon for racers to collide with each other. Some observers have compared the sport to short track speed skating because of the amount of contact involved. The name and the riders' full-face helmets show the sport's influence by motocross.

Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set onto mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. In Freestyle Snowboarding, the rider uses man-made terrain features such as rails, jumps, boxes, and innumerable other innovative features to perform tricks on. The term "box" refers to an object with a slick top, usually of polyethylene(HDPE), that the rider can slide on with the base of their board. Like all freestyle features, boxes come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and difficulty levels. The intent of freestyle is to use these terrain features to perform a number of aerial or jib tricks. The term "jib" refers to the rider doing a slide or press on an object not made of snow. This most commonly refers to tricks done on boxes, rails, or even trees

Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline, involving skiing between poles (gates) spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns. In snowboarding snowboard is used instead of ski.

Recreational sports

Some 'sports' are competed (or simply enjoyed) on a more casual basis, often by children:

Building snowmen
Ice boating or sailing
Ice fishing
Ice swimming
Shinny
Snowball fight
Tobogganing

A snowman is an anthropomorphic snow sculpture. They are customarily built by children as part of a family project in celebration of winter. In some cases, participants in winter festivals will build large numbers of snowmen. Building snowman is one of the recreational activity for people in winter.

An Ice boat (often spelled as "iceboat") is a boat or purpose-built framework similar in functional design to a sail boat but fitted with skis or runners (skates) and designed to run over ice instead of through water. Ice boating is one of the recreational activity for people in winter.

Ice fishing is the practice of catching fish with lines and fish hooks or spears through an opening in the ice on a frozen body of water. Ice anglers may sit on the stool in the open on a frozen lake, or in a heated cabin on the ice, some with bunks and amenities. It is one of the recreational activity for people in winter.

Ice swimming is swimming in a body of water with a frozen crust of ice, which requires either breaking the ice or entering where a spring keeps the water from freezing over. This may also be simulated by a pool of water at 0 °C, the temperature at which water freezes.

Shinny (also shinney) is an informal type of hockey goaltenders. The goal areas at each end may be marked by nets, or simply by objects, such as blocks of snow, stones, etc. played on ice or the street. There are no formal rules or specific positions, and generally, there are no goaltenders.

Snowball fight is a physical game in which balls of snow are thrown with the intention of hitting somebody else. The game is similar to dodgeball in its major factors, though typically less organized. This activity is primarily played during months when there is sufficient snowfall.

Toboggan is a simple sled which is a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people (often children) down a hill or other slope for recreation. Designs vary from simple, traditional models to modern engineered composites. A toboggan differs from most sleds or sleighs in that it has no runners or skis (or only low ones) on the underside. The bottom of a toboggan rides directly on the snow. Some parks include designated toboggan hills where ordinary sleds are not allowed and which may include toboggan runs similar to bobsleigh courses.

Team sports

Bandy
Broomball
Curling *
Ice hockey *
Ice stock sport
Ringette
Sledge hockey - (winter Paralympic sport)
Snowball fight - (last one standing)
Snowman building - highest one

Bandy, sometimes unofficially named Russian hockey, is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has eleven players, one of whom is a goalkeeper. A standard bandy match consists of two halves of 45 minutes each. The offside rule is also similar to that observed in association football. Bandy is played on ice, using a single round ball.

Broomball is a popular recreational ice game originating in Canada and played around the world. It is played in a hockey rink, either indoors or outdoors, depending on climate and location. In a game of broomball there are two teams, each consisting of six players: a goaltender and five others. The object of the game is to score more goals than your opponent. Goals are scored by hitting the ball into your opponent's net using your broom. Tactics and plays are similar to those used in sports such as ice hockey, roller hockey and floorball.

Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard.
Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game, points being scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game may consist of ten or eight ends.

Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a puck into the opposing team's goal. It is a fast-paced physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover.
Ice hockey is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players, including one goaltender, per side on the ice at any time, each of whom is on ice skates. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard vulcanized rubber disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net, which is placed at the opposite end of the rink. The players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade that is commonly curved at one end. Players may also redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, subject to certain restrictions.

Ice stock sport (also known as Bavarian Curling) is a winter sport, somewhat similar to curling. Competitors slide ice stocks over an ice surface, aiming for a target, or to cover the longest distance. Ice stocks have a gliding surface, to which a stick (ca 30 cm) is attached. Although the sport is traditionally played on an ice surface, events are also held on tarmacs in summer.

Ringette is a team sport played on an ice surface. Played primarily by females, Ringette requires the use of straight sticks to control a rubber ring; with the objective of the game being to score goals by shooting the ring into the opponent's net. Ringette is related to ice hockey in equipment and playing surface, but differs in rules and approach to the game. In hockey, puck handling requires agility and concentration. In ringette, the challenge is in catching or "stabbing" the ring. To catch a ring, a player must stab through the hole in the ring with the stick, usually while the player is on the move.

Sledge hockey (sled hockey) is a sport that was designed to allow participants who have a physical disability to play the game of ice hockey. Sledge/sled was designed with two skate blades on a metal frame that allowed the puck to pass underneath. It was completed by ensembling two round poles with bike handles for sticks. Although there are many restrictions to the measurements and weight of the sledges used in the Paralympic Games, little has changed from the original design to the ones that exist today.

Winter Sports

Sunday, January 16, 2011