Where Data Tells the Story
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The 25th Winter Olympic Games are set to open in Northern Italy today. According to data from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), there will be 116 events at which athletes will compete for medals – more than at any previous Winter Olympics. The first Winter Olympics in Chamonix in the French Alps had only 16 events. The increase in medal events can be chalked up to an increase in sports included in the Olympics as well as more medals given out within the same sports.
In Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, this year's venues, one new sport will be added including three medal events – ski mountaineering –, while five events are tacked on in existing sports, including a doubles freestyle skiing event, mixed skeleton teams and women's double luge.
The addition of a new sport is the first time this is happening since skeleton sleds returned in 2002 (previously included for the last time in 1948). Snowboarding was added in 1998 as well as short-track speed skating and freestyle skiing in 1992.
The addition of new events within sports is much more common, often focusing on the inclusion of women or mixed-gender events. While nordic combined – which sees contenders cross-country ski and ski jump – is the single men-only sport at the games (3 events), the men's team ski jump is the other remaining event with no female counterpart. Additionally to this, women don't ride the four-person bobsleigh, instead competing in a singles bobsleigh that has no male equivalent. Some distances for women also differ in sports like biathlon and speed skating. The organizers are aiming for a 47-percent female participation rate this year, the highest for a Winter Olympics ever, while the Paris 2024 Summer games had already aimed for 50 percent.
The original 16 events that athletes competed in in 1924 were in eight sports: bobsleigh, curling, cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating. Alpine skiing was only added in 1936, after skeleton in 1928, while biathlon and luge were added in the 1960s.