UK/FILE: OLYMPICS: Six new events added for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi

Record ID: 330154

  • Title: UK/FILE: OLYMPICS: Six new events added for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi
  • Date: 7th April 2011
  • Summary: OLYMPIC FLAG OUTSIDE HOTEL WHERE IOC ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE IOC SPORTS DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHE DUBI ABOUT TO MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT OLYMPIC LOGO ON SCREEN
  • Embargoed: 22nd April 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA6GXQAVXG5NQE74OFRXA7NKK9U
  • Story Text: The 2014 Sochi winter Olympics will have six new events, including women's ski jumping which had long campaigned for inclusion, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Wednesday (April 6).
    "|This is a great day," said the IOC's sports director Christophe Dubi. "The executive board has decided to introduce six new events for the Sochi games, namely the ski halfpipe for men and women, the women's ski jumping, the Biathlon mixed relay, the figure-skating team event, and the luge team relay."
    Men's and women's ski and snowboard slopestyles and an Alpine team parallel competition would be monitored longer before a decision on their inclusion was taken in May or June, Dubi told reporters.
    He said the decision on which sports made the cut was based on what they were bringing to the Olympics as the IOC seeks to boost universality, youth appeal and gender equity.
    IOC President Jacques Rogge said: "They will bring to the games a kind of a sucess and a young category, I would say 12-24 because these are the sports they practise themselves. And this is just very important because we want to give the life of the Olympics at the very beginning to the youth and then continue with adults and finish with seniors."
    Women ski jumpers, who were not included in last year's Vancouver Games and had unsuccessfully sued organisers over what they said was gender discrimination, said they were delighted to finally win a spot on the Olympic programme.
    Relay races have been made possible with electronic timing aids, allowing mixed teams to compete against each other more easily.
    The only remaining winter Olympic event that does not have both male and female representation is Nordic combined.
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