New events for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

When the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games kickoff this week, there will be all the sports of snow and ice you recognize already. Downhill skiing, speed skating, and snowboarding are just some of the activities you'll recognize. There will be curling, an activity that is played on ice, but is of course not a sport. It’s immensely popular with both Canadians and people that enjoy math and statistics with their competitive activities, however.

But in 2022 there will be no demonstration sports at the Beijing Games, as all the events taking place will be for a medal. But, that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of events. While there were 102 events in Pyeongchang four years ago, and there are 109 coming in Beijing.

Monobob is the newest bobsledding event, where one female will push and be in the sled all the way down the hill by herself. This brings gender balance to the sport, where women compete in two-person, but men compete in two-person and four-person. There is no men’s monobob at the Beijing games.

There are also new mixed-gender team events in a snowboard cross relay, a short-track speed skating relay, and new dual-gender team events in ski jumping and aerial freestyle skiing. This tracks with what we saw in Tokyo at the 2020 Summer Games, where there are more co-ed sports than ever.