The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing, China, just forteen years after hosting the Summer games in 2008. The 2008 Summer Olympics was memorable for an incredible opening ceremony of showmanship, so expectations are already high for these Winter Games.
To add to the excitement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved the addition of new sports to the competition. This is no small feat, considering how much time and effort must be put into having the IOC recognize them, let alone to add additional subsets. Although there are more than these, here are a few new competitions that we’ll be seeing:
- Mixed Snowboardcross
- Women’s Monobobsled
- Big Air Skiing
Mixed Snowboardcross Events
While Snowboardcross events are nothing new in the Olympics, the 2022 games in Beijing will be the first to include mixed teams events. This means that an equal number of both men and women will be competing on the same teams against their international rivals. The sport involves high speed snowboard racing over all types of terrain. This follows the lead of many other sports such as curling in including mixed team events.
Women’s Monobobsled Races
Monobobsled is identical to the more well known bobsled races of Olympic Games past. The only difference is that, instead of having a team of either two or four push and then steer the bobsled, only a single athlete performs all of these actions. This finally gives those in the bobsled community the chance to see who is the best all-around athlete, as opposed to who is the best off of the start line or who is the best driver. While the 2022 Games will only feature a women’s competition, the men’s competition is under review for the 2026 Games.
Big Air Skiing
This is perhaps the most widely anticipated new event of the 2022 Beijing Games. This comes after massive interest in big air snowboarding in the 2018 Games. The high-flying acrobatics of the snowboarders were perhaps all the IOC needed to convince them to add big air skiing to the docket as well. Big air skiing has long been popular in the X-Games but has never received the approval of the international governing body until this year, and fans are more than ready to see their favorite athletes in action.