Everyone knows about the Winter Olympic events like ice hockey and figure skating but what about some of the events you may have never heard of? You would be surprised at some of the things that have developed into Winter Olympic events over the years. Sometimes it makes you wonder what the criteria for becoming a Winter Olympic event is after you take a look at just some of the more unknown events of the Winter Olympics.

The Biathlon is a Winter Olympic event that started out as a military training exercise for countries like Finland and Norway. The Biathlon consists of a lot of cross country skiing and then shooting a target rifle for accuracy and speed. So the competitors ski for a little while and then they stop and see how many targets they can shoot out with their target rifle in the shortest amount of time. The whole thing seems a little disjointed to people that do not follow it but it is an extremely popular event all over the world and has been an Winter Olympic event since 1960.

Curling is a game that has been around for centuries. Basically curling is taking a slick but large stone and sending it down a sheet of ice and trying to get the stone to land in the scoring circles of a large target at the other end of the ice. You also concern yourself with knocking the other teams’ stones off the target as well as trying to place yours. You have one person that glides the stones and then a team of people with brooms trying to sweep snow off the ice in front of the stone so it goes faster. Curling is extremely popular in countries like Canada and Sweden but never really caught on in the United States.

Skeleton is a very dangerous sport that was removed from the Winter Olympics for a while and then reintroduced in 2002. Skeleton is basically the luge but the big difference is in the luge you are lying on the sled with your feet facing forward and in skeleton you are flying down the icy course on your sled face first. Needless to say the opportunity for catastrophic injury is very high in skeleton and that may explain the bizarre name for the event and the world wide popularity that got it reinstated into the Winter Olympics. No one wants to see any athlete get hurt but the skill it takes to not get killed in skeleton should merit some kind of medal alone.

Snow Boarding is a sport that found its ways from the ski slopes of the United States to the half pipes and slalom tracks of the Winter Olympics in 1998. The snow boarding events in the Winter Olympics are a lot like the skiing events. There is a giant slalom race and then a jumping competition where style points are awarded. But snow boarding and skiing are two very different disciplines and it is this inherent difference that has allowed there to be a snow boarding competition in the Winter Olympics along with the skiing competition.

Conspicuous by its absence in the Winter Olympics is the sport of basketball. Traditionally a winter sport, basketball has always been relegated to the Summer Olympics which still causes some confusion in the United States where the game of basketball was invented and where it is played professionally during the winter months.