--- description: New Olympic events to lure a younger audience title: Fresh Sports At Sochi image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Fresh Sports At Sochi by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 3, 2014 12:14 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 3, 2014 12:14 AM CUT The international Olympic committee continues to amp up the Winter Games program to keep it youth- and television-friendly. In 1998 snowboarding was introduced. In 2002 skeleton–a terrifying one-person, headfirst sledding event–was resurrected. Here’s what you need to know about a few of the events making their debut in Sochi. SNOWBOARD PARALLEL SPECIAL SLALOM In this slopestyle elimination race, pairs of snowboarders fire downhill on identical courses with identical obstacles. First to the finish wins. FIGURE-SKATING TEAM EVENT Teams will now compete in singles and pairs in figure skating and ice dancing because the events have become so popular with viewers. SNOWBOARD SLOPESTYLE This downhill event adds jumps and rail slides to alpine snowboarding, giving X Games champion Shaun White even more opportunities to medal. FREE-SKIING HALFPIPE Exactly like its snowboarding counterpart, except on skis. Each athlete will have a chance to perform two routines to reach the finals. WOMEN’S SKI JUMPING Ski jumping has been a men’s event since the first Winter Games, in 1924\. Now women will compete on the 105-m hill. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/89/fresh-sports-at-sochi/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/89/fresh-sports-at-sochi/"},"headline":"Fresh Sports At Sochi","datePublished":"2014-01-03T00:14:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:12:13.035Z","description":"New Olympic events to lure a younger audience","url":"https://time.com/89/fresh-sports-at-sochi/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/89/fresh-sports-at-sochi/","name":"Fresh Sports At Sochi"}}]}] ```