The equivalent would be the Cross Country Sprint, but it is kind of lame.

I much prefer the Biathlon events

I'll throw bobsled out there. It's different in that not many can relate to it, but it's just so iconic - only time most people ever see it is every 4 years on tv for the winter olympics.

Or if they watch cool runnings, which depicts the olympics.

What I am getting at is most kids have sprinted across a sports field so Bolt was the ultimate human in that at the Summer games (well, until he was no longer). What do kids do on snow? Either they race downhill on skis (first to the bottom of the hill), or on a sled. But I don't think that bobsled even remotely relates to sledding on the local hill, but downhill skiing does. Most kids on snow, don't try to outsprint each other on cross country skis since it takes around 5 years on XC skis to even get close to doing anything fast on those for little kids. But they can still fly fast downhill on any type of skis (be they cross country, downhill). At a personal level, I can relate to XC ski sprinting, having done some of those races, but very few actually ever get to the point that they can move fast on flat ground (or uphill). That's why I think downhill is the premier event. Stuff like figure skating might get coverage, but almost no one has experienced what those athletes can do.

Where’d you get that? In XC, the marquee event is the men's 50km. The winner is the undisputed boss, and in good years it will come down to a 2-up Sprint.

I think it should be skeleton- it isn't and probably never will be- but anyone who pulls that off faster than the others who try should be celebrated as pure bad-ass. Anyone who lives/lived in cold weather sled down a hill as a kid. Sledding down a hill head first was much more fun.

---

"There are two ways to slide easily through life- to believe everything and to doubt everything- both ways save us from thinking "- Korzbyski

Yeah, I can definitely relate (in a loose way) to the skeleton athlete. Find the steepest hills close to home, wait for the day after freezing rain, trek to the top when it is blue ice and then launch yourself downhill head first and hope your speed is not so fast that your buddies end up halfway in the middle of the street across from the hill with a school bus rolling down the street (that you probably missed because you decided to do the blue ice skeleton replica, rather than be a good kid and wait properly at the bus stop)....why are we even alive????

The 50k is cool the Sprint is super short. Like 3.5 minutes. Hard effort for sure.

As a Canadian, I must respectfully insist that the king event is the ice hockey tournament.

...also the 50K and the sprint are turning into almost the same event....by the end the sprint finish is the same for both !!!! I suppose that's like saying that the finish in the velodrome in Roubaix they could just get rid of the entire 7 hours of riding before the velodrome, but that would not be Paris Roubaix. I do enjoy watching the sprint events for sure. It is way more exciting than the downhill. I've been watching these guys come down runs now for few hours and after a while watching a sequence of guys on an 1:40 downhill TT looks like the same. Perhaps like when I watch Formula 1 qualifying. It's fun to watch a few pilots, but then you wait till Sunday for the head to head racing. XC skiing sprints head to head is a blast to watch!

Halfpipe
Downhill
Individual figure skating
Ice Hockey

Both the downhill and sprint works for me :-)

500m Long Track... fastest man or woman on ice

---

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

From the perspective of a Brit with very little national interest in winter sports to cheer on, I'd agree with the downhill. I didn't know much about winter sports as a kid, and there was very little media coverage of them (other than Eddie the Eagle and Torvill and Dean), but the downhill was the one I'd always tune in for and the only event where there was much name recognition. Even in UK names like Klammer and Killy were pretty iconic. And the top skiers seemed the most like sprinters in terms of the swagger, the sponsors, etc.

Bobsled is cool but it's a team event, I honestly couldn't name a single bobsledder. Cross country is the winter equivalent of the Olympic walking events to somebody from a country without snow, with biathlon being even more obscure. Ice hockey is always fun to watch, but as a team sport it doesn't compare to the 100m.

I grew up in a ski town in Colorado. For us the premier Olympics was the Winter Games and not the summer games, and what we respected most was the Combined. Taking the technical aspects of the slalom and the guts of the downhill and awarding the best alpine skier - that was what we cherished the most.

Now, as a lunger, my multisport endurance crew is pretty stoked about all things nordic - perhaps biathlon is the fav.

Ian

---

Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

I would guess the premier money making medal would be the half pipe snowboard gold in endorsements, general fame, talk show guest, and lecture circuit. I would rather win any color biathlon, xc ski or speed skating medal for personal satisfaction. Those athletes are the real rock stars in my world.

I think the downhill is generally considered the "premier" event. I don't find it nearly as interesting as non-TT nordic events (biathlon and xc), but then again I also prefer the 10,000 to the 100m.

No, in terms of prestige, it's the 50K/30K for sure.

In alpine skiing it's the downhill or the combined.

---

http://www.jt10000.com/

I respecfully disagree with regard to the status of alpine combined :) In my opinion it is the least prestigous of the alpine events. I'd vote for dowhill.

The problem is your coming at this wrong.

The primer medal of the summer games is women's overall gymnastics. You know who Mary Lou Retton is. She got Wheaties boxes. Carl Lewis didn't

The primer medal of the winter oly is, unfortunately, women's figure skating.

If we're talking the fame that goes with it, I'd say without question it's women's individual figure skating. That's the premier, most watched, and most well known winter olympic event.

---

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

At our estrogen overcharged house its figure skating.

---

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Neither figure skating nor gymnastics are sports that regular people do. Sure the marketing world will prop up these sports, but they are not lifestyle sports that the average person has any remote connection to. All humans are part of the race to win the Olympic 100m, because every kid does this sport at some point. In winter, we're only talking about every human who has been on snow or ice, so this is not evereyone. But once you narrow it down to that, we're talking about the athlete at the top of the food chain for the activity that almost everyone has done. I think even if you have not slapped on skis and you slid down a hill on snow in your boots on your feet in the school yard, you can still relate to the terror and speed of going downhill on your feet on the verge of crashing.

Some sports are just a formalization of what humans just do in their environment. Without any rules, two kids will try to sprint down the field or slide down a slipper hill on snow. This is the simplest essence of competition and sport. All other sports are concoctions and variations.

Let's put it another way. If a kid can sprint close to 10 second in 100m in grade 9, there is no way that kid is ending up on the swim team. He's on the track team. It's not even a question. You would not be able to convince this kid to quit track and join swimming even if the kid happens to be a decent swimmer (but the likelihood is that if you can run near 10 seconds for track, your body type is a bit wrong for swimming). So what's the winter version?

Hey Dev, How's it going eh? (in my best Canadian accent) :-)

I know many people think the 100m in the summer is "everything." for me it's the Marathon.

Winter? Downhill, yep.

---

I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

i agree on the half pipe. Skiing seems to be the sport of the old. Half pipe is the kids sport.

20 years ago. Probably skiing.