| 1 | Alpine skiing | Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the sport or recreation of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. It is characterized by the requirement for mechanical assistance getting to the top of the hill, since the equipment does not allow efficient walking or hiking, unlike cross-country skis which use free-heel bindings. It is typically practised at ski resorts which provide services such as ski lifts, artificial snow making and grooming, first aid, and restaurants. Back-country skiers use alpine skiing equipment to ski off the marked pistes, with the transport by helicopter or snowcat. |
| 2 | Biathlon | 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. |
| 3 | Bobsleigh | 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.
The various types of sleds came several years before the first tracks were built in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where the original bobsleds were adapted upsized luge/skeleton sleds designed by the adventurously wealthy to carry passengers. All three types were adapted from boys delivery sleds and toboggans.
Competition naturally followed, and to protect the working class and rich visitors in the streets and byways of St Moritz, hotel owner Caspar Badrutt, owner of the historic Krup Hotel and the later Palace Hotel, built the first familiarly configured ‘half-pipe’ track circa 1870. It has hosted the sports during two Olympics and is still in use today. |
| 4 | Cross country skiing | 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 places with large snowfields, primarily Northern Europe, Canada, and Alaska.
Cross-country skiing is part of the Nordic skiing sport family, which also includes ski jumping, and a combination sport of cross-country skiing and ski jumping called Nordic combined. Free-technique cross-country skiing is also the method of locomotion in the combination sport of Biathlon, which adds rifle marksmanship to skiing. Another combination sport is ski-orienteering, which adds the skill of map navigation along snow trails and tracks.
Related sports are backcountry skiing and Telemark skiing. The ski touring article provides an overview of different ski styles and techniques. |
| 5 | Curling | 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 granitestones, also called “rocks”, 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 are 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.
The curler can induce a curved path by causing the stone to slowly turn as it slides, and the path of the rock may be further influenced by two sweepers with brooms who accompany it as it slides down the sheet, using the brooms to alter the state of the ice in front of the stone. A great deal of strategy and teamwork goes into choosing the ideal path and placement of a stone for each situation, and the skills of the curlers determine how close to the desired result the stone will achieve. This gives curling its nickname of “Chess On Ice”. |