The World’s Favourite Winter Olympic Sports
With the 2018 Winter Olympics just around the corner, sports enthusiasts can gear up for 3 weeks of intense sporting action, world-class competitions and plenty of betting opportunities. The host city for this year’s event is PyeongChang in South Korea. This is the second time the South Koreans have hosted the Winter Olympics, the first being in Seoul in 1988. Despite the freezing temperatures and controversy surrounding the invitees, the event is set to be a major highlight of the 2018 world sporting calendar.
Excluding demonstrative sports, athletes in PyeongChang will compete in a total of 15 events on snow and ice. These include everything from skiing to ice hockey, luge to bobsledding, snowboarding to biathlon and many others. In the US and Canada, ice hockey is the most predominant sport. Next to American football, baseball and basketball, it is one of the major US sports with millions of viewers tuning into each game.
Russia is also a major proponent of ice hockey as is the two Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Finland. In other parts of the world though, ice hockey is a relatively insignificant winter sport. In Africa for example, curling is the dominant sport with portions of the continent preferring the likes of bobsledding. In the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia, curling enjoys hug popularity while South America and Mexico have bobsledding as their go-to sport.
Snowboarding, Luge, Speed Skating and Bobsledding
Snowboarding is another popular sport, which is gaining momentum in the US and Canada. In Australia, snowboarding has long enjoyed its place as dominant sports. Iceland and Great Brian also prefer the more modern snowboarding to traditional winter sports. If you are particularly interested in speed skating, Mongolia and China is where you will find the most action skating action.
In New Zealand as well as Spain and parts of Eastern Europe, Luge is the dominant sport with athletes competing in all levels. While you may think countries like Russia or Germany would be more into figure skating, it is Japan who is most enamoured with the sport. Figure skating in Japan has risen to become the single largest winter-based sport in the country. Ireland is another country that prefers the more obscure sports, or traditional, depending on how you look at it. In Ireland, ski jumping is the main attraction with the National Ski Jumping squad holding the hopes of the country on their shoulders.
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