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The Weirdest Sports of the Winter Olympics

We're here to demystify the sports that boggle the masses, the bizarre events that come about every four years at the Winter Olympics.

Everyone knows skiing and snowboarding, a few are familiar with skating, and of course who could forget ice hockey?

But there are always a few competitions that leave viewers scratching their heads.

We've picked just a few of the strangest sports that featured at the Winter Olympics in 2018.

1. Curling

Ah, curling, the one with the brooms ... That's probably the extent of most people's curling knowledge. The aim of the sport is to slide the stone into the bullseye at the end of the course. Like darts, but on ice.

The team closest to the center wins a point and the team with the most points at the end obviously wins. Like darts.

2. Skeleton

Not as spooky as one might think, skeleton competitors instead throw themselves onto fast-moving sleds and hurtle down an icy track for time.

Easy right? Athletes can reach speeds of up to 130km/h down the track and if you're in the crowd don't blink or you'll miss them.

3. Biathlon

Skiing wasn't quite hard enough so for this event so someone decided to add in shooting! Cross-country skiing and shooting make up the Winter Biathlon.

Athletes generally ski around a 20km course, stopping during each lap to shoot a target and the fastest time and highest accuracy wins.

4. Double Luge

If this isn't one of the weirdest sports of all time we don't know what is. It's the regular Luge but add in another athlete on top. That's two people hurtling down an icy track at super high speeds ... at least they have each other.

The man on the bottom handles the suspension and smoothness of the run while the man on top signals upcoming turns and works together to navigate the track.

The Luge is one of the most precisely timed sports in the lineup, timed to one-thousandth of a second, so really there shouldn't be any complaints from silver or bronze recipients.

5. Nordic Combined

Sure you can ski but are you any good at ski jumping? That's what you need to do to compete in the Nordic Combined. A competition jump is completed and then later on the same day a cross country ski.

The highest scoring ski jump starts at 00:00 for the cross country ski and all others start with a slight time disadvantage according to their jump score.

There are different variations in the number of jumps and skiing distances.

Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below.

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#WinterOlympics #Skiing #Curling