In conjunction with her article in the Jan/Feb 2018 issue of Art & Society, Sandra Rossetti Mitchell offers some trivia about the XXIII Winter Games:
- The first Winter Olympics took place in Chamonix, France in 1924. The 2018 Winter Games will be the 23rd.
- There will be a total of 15 sports in these Games, with 102 individual or team events; that’s 102 chances to win gold!
- New events include: Big Air Snowboarding, Freestyle Skiing, Mass Start Speed Skating and Mixed Doubles Curling.
Big Air Snowboarding, photo courtesy of edwards.af.mil
- Many of the events take place on the slopes; those that don’t are on ice!
- The Games’ 13 venues will be spread across two areas. The PyeongChang Mountain Cluster will host the skiing/sliding events, while the Gangneung Coastal Cluster will host figure skating, hockey, curling and short-track speed skating.
- PyeongChang will host the largest number of events for women and the greatest number of women’s and men’s mixed events in Olympic history.
PyeongChang Mountain Cluster
- There are no worries about construction delays at this time. Venues are mostly complete, and Team USA members who have seen them gave good reports.
- Details of the Opening Ceremony are being kept secret, but expect lots of Korean culture.
- One of the favorites to light the Olympic cauldron is Yuna Kim, South Korea’s beloved gold-medal-winning figure skater, but she recently retired and won’t compete. Will she still light the flame?
Source: Republic of Korea/Flickr
Check out “Olympic Excitement on the Rise,” also by Rosetti, in the Jan/Feb issue of Art & Society to learn more about Peoria's connections to the 2018 Olympic Games! PS
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