BEIJING, China — The 2022 Winter Olympic Games are officially underway in Beijing and 2,871 athletes will be competing for gold over the span of a little over two weeks.
While the Winter Olympics is smaller in scale than the Summer Olympics, the competition is continuously growing. This year, the U.S. brought 224 athletes to compete in the Games featuring 109 events, including seven new ones.
As more events are added, one thing is for sure, these six sports have appeared in every Winter Olympics: cross-country skiing, figure skating, hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating.
Actually, figure skating is the oldest Winter Games sport dating back to its first Olympics in the 1908 and 1920 Summer Olympics, the Olympics reports.
Before the inaugural Winter Olympics in 1924, figure skating was a part of the Summer Olympics where both men and women competed in multiple events including individuals and pairs.
In the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, women were only allowed to participate in figure skating, according to History. And since then, the event has grown to include single skating, ice dance and pair skating for both the men's and women's teams.
Keep up with figure skating events and medal count in Beijing 2022 here.
