Introducing Beijing 2022, a landmark Olympic Winter Games

It's time to sort your lutz from your loop, slopestyle from skiathlon, slalom from Super-G - and what exactly is shredding?

Welcome to Beijing 2022 and a landmark Winter Olympics.

This will be the third successive Games hosted in Asia, following PyeongChang 2018 and then the delayed Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Beijing will be the most gender-equal Winter Olympics ever, with 12 of the 15 sports now gender-equal and Nordic combined the only sport with no female participation.

The Chinese capital will also hold the distinction of being the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games, having won the vote to host the Games over Almaty in Kazakhstan.

The 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing were memorable for some of the iconic venues used, with a number set to feature again in 2022.

The Bird’s Nest, where Usain Bolt rewrote the record books, will not host a sport in 2022 but will be used for both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Meanwhile the National Aquatics Centre, fondly known as the ‘Water Cube’ 14 years ago, has been repurposed to host the curling events and is now being nicknamed the ‘Ice Cube’.

The National Indoor Stadium and the Wukesong Sports Centre return to both host ice hockey, while the Capital Indoor Stadium will stage short track and figure skating.

There is also a new venue which will accommodate the big air events, the Big Air Shougang. Built on the site of a former steel mill, it is the world’s first permanent big air venue.

The majority of the ice events will take place in the Beijing cluster of venues, but there are two further clusters.

The Yanqing district, some 90km to the northwest of Beijing, will play host to the alpine skiing events, as well as the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events.

Lastly, the Zhangjiakou cluster is 220km from the centre of Beijing but just an hour on the new intercity railway. It will be the venue for events such as the cross-country skiing and biathlon, as well as the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events.

This year there will be a record 109 gold medals up for grabs in 15 disciplines across seven sports.

There are seven new events making their Olympic debuts, with four in mixed events as the Olympics continues to add to the mixed programme that has captured the imagination in both Winter and Summer Games.

50 Team GB athletes from 11 sports head to Beijing with high hopes having won five medals at both PyeongChang 2018 and Sochi 2014.

Once more we will obsess over curling, marvel over the sheer speed of sliders and swoon at the grace and power of figure skaters. And it all starts on 4 February.

Sportsbeat 2022