Ranking Every Single Event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Welcome back to another edition of “Sam Ranking Things He Knows Nothing About.” And, as we did with the Summer Olympics a few short months ago, it’s time to give you a complete list of Winter Olympic sports rated from best to worst so you know where to focus your time and energy.

Is there any sort of coherent formula or scoring system used in making these decisions? None whatsoever. But they are absolutely scientific in the sense that my brain is a functioning biological entity and this is what I believe to be the correct order. Thankfully there are WAY LESS winter sports so this will be a much easier task for me, but I will not take the responsibility any less seriously!

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Every Winter Olympic Sport for 2022

15. Biathlon

Why in the hell are we skiing AND shooting things? This is the equivalent of taking all of the distance runners in the Summer Olympics, strapping a rifle on their backs, and telling them to also be able to hit a target between 5 mile segments. Might as well make potato peeling a sport. Want to make it better? Throw a bunch of caribou out there and tell racers they can’t finish until they’ve taken one down. That sport I would watch.

14. Cross Country Skiing

Still incredibly uninteresting, but at least I get the idea. The bigger failure is that they send everyone out staggered instead of in a group. This sport would be a lot cooler if I got to see 15 skinny Scandinavians falling and hitting each other with their poles as they try to fight for position.

13. Nordic Combined

Kudos to the Nords for making up a sport just so they could win more medals, but why is there a separate event for combined Cross Country Skiing and Ski Jumping? Answer: the Nords tricked all of us (yes, I know “Nords” isn’t a thing but I simply don’t care).

12. Speed Skating

This label is a bit of a misnomer, since the exciting event most people think of (i.e. remember it exists once every four years) is “Short Track Speed Skating.” And, similar to all the long distance running events everyone ignores until the 100M sprints in the Summer, long distance speed skating is not all that fun to watch. I don’t object to it, but I also won’t pretend to be interested.

11. Alpine Skiing

This is where things got tough, and all the events from here on out are “good.” That said, this event just doesn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s because I have the attention span of a peanut or because I just like the events with tricks, but after watching about 1 run I get fairly bored. Still cool, but could use improvement. My solution? Instead of flappy gates that all the skiers hit, use cement walls. That’ll teach them to get around…

10. Luge

Starting feet first instead of head first just feels unnatural. The athletes (are these athletes? Seems like we’re pushing the boundaries a bit) look like they’re frightened, as opposed to the head first version where the riders appear fully prepared to cave their skull in for the sake of speed. Give me the unadulterated version every time.

9. Snowboarding

This “event” takes a knock because I have no clue what it is. Aren’t there 17 different snowboarding events? The halfpipe is awesome, but looping that in with every other type of snowboarding seems kind of silly. I make my living here off words, and the Olympics needs to use theirs better.

8. Short Track Speed Skating

Definitely cool, but those banana helmets they wear are weird and it feels sort of like a game of chance because people can get swiped at any moment. Definitely exciting, but a bit silly from a design standpoint. Plus, I’m always scared that I'm going to see a blade chop off someone’s limb.

7. Curling

Everyone’s choice for “sport I could make the Olympics for” regardless of how athletic they are. And it’s sort of fair, especially if your job is just to sweep ice in front of a rock. But, despite how simple it may seem, curling is very interesting strategically and certainly more difficult than it looks. Plus, they take their outfit designs seriously and I appreciate that.

6. Skeleton

The previously mentioned “head first version.” It’s exciting, though I’m a bit unsure why we made a massive track of ice to go down and risk death. Couldn’t we do this on the snow somewhere with normal sleds? That feels much more relatable, especially for every kid who grew up north of the Mason Dixon Line.

5. Bobsleigh

First of all, Bobsleigh? I thought it was Bobsled. They need to fix that, but I digress. This is an extremely cool event, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a nightmare to watch. Basically, they have cameras set up at every turn and you watch them wizz by then jump to a new location over and over like some sort of weird video flip book. Every human being who ever watched Cool Runnings has a soft spot for it though, and I’ll gladly tune in to see the Jamaicans this year.

4.Figure Skating

Figure skating seems to be the crown jewel of the Winter Olympics similar to Gymnastics in the Summer, but it’s not quite as cool. Sure, being able to do triple hoop swoon mega twirls while on skates is impressive to say the least, but the weird pageantry doesn’t quite do it for me. Sort of splitting hairs here but when you get to the cream of the crop there’s no room for error, and I have to drop it down to fourth for that reason.

3. Ski Jumping

I have a massive fear of heights, so part of my interest in watching this sport may have a lot to do with just how absurd jumping off a giant ramp and trying to land on skis is, but it is pretty damn cool to watch. And, for bonus points, it meets one of the core tenets of Olympic sports; being completely nonsensical. Why in god’s name are we doing this? What two idiots decided to start competing to see who could jump the farthest and survive by barreling off a cliff as fast as possible? So perfectly stupid, and I love it.

2. Freestyle Skiing

Speaking of “why the hell are we doing this,” enter; Freestyle skiing. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why we have people going as fast as possible down moguls while also keeping perfect form AND THEN taking breaks to do multiple flips in between those moguls. But… DAMN is it cool to watch and these athletes are right on the boundary of perfection and complete failure at pretty much every second. Having Freestyle Skiing this high on the list may have been a surprise, but I think the ranking is well deserved (and I’m making the list, so that’s all that matters)

1. Ice Hockey

With the NHL being forced to not release players due to Covid, Ice Hockey is taking a hit this year in terms of quality and excitement. But it is truly the best winter sport and the one people really get behind. I remember waking up to watch USA-Russia in 2014 at some ungodly hour with a bunch of roommates who had never played hockey, because it simply wasn’t an option not to. What Basketball lacks in competitiveness in the summer, hockey usually makes up for with a ton of parity and lots of countries with a real shot (along with some sad straggler every year who gets blown into the next century every game). It won’t be the same in 2022, but Hockey is still the ultimate Winter Olympic Sport.