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The 2014 Winter Olympics have begun! It’s time for the biennial celebration of stellar athletes and national pride. What events are you looking forward to this year? Personally, I am a huge fan of watching the bobsleigh courses.
This year the games are being held in Sochi, Russia. In case you don’t know your Russian geography too well (I sure don’t), we can query Wolfram|Alpha to find out where exactly this winter’s Olympic host city is:
Even though the opening ceremonies are airing tonight, the first two events kicking off the Olympics—qualifying rounds of freestyle skiing and snowboarding—have already taken place! In recent years, the US has tallied up the most gold medals in freestyle skiing:
And who could forget the legendary Shaun White, who won men’s snowboarding by a landslide in 2006 and 2010? But the US is no stranger to gold medals—it’s been winning them as far back as 1896:
Meanwhile, despite remaining consistent in the summer games, the number of gold medals Russia has won in the winter games has decreased over time—they were only awarded three gold medals in the last Winter Olympics. We’ll see how they stack up this year!
But preparing for the games goes beyond training the athletes to win—the host city has to construct each of the venues according to international standards. For instance, speed skating rinks and figure skating rinks are not at all the same—speed skating rinks are actually about twice as large.
From the popular to the lesser known, Wolfram|Alpha has the scoop on all the events in the Winter Olympics. Stay tuned for the medal counts of this year’s games in our databases as they come in!
And it’s not too early to start looking forward to the summer games…
