The Winter Olympics are coming, but it's fair to say Aussies might not be as familiar with some of the events as those in its Summer counterpart.
Which is a shame, because almost every event at the colder version of the Games is an adrenaline sport.
In fact, you could argue that the Winter Olympics are the Australian wildlife version of multi-sport events. Sure, they all look cool, but given half the chance, they'd kill you in a heartbeat.
Check out our guide of all the events at the Winter Games so you don't get your mountains mixed up with your moguls in Beijing.
Curling
Despite the athletes showing nerves of steel and needing to display extraordinary precision, curling is not the most adrenaline-fuelled sport to take place at the Games.
To stretch the Australian wildlife analogy, curling is the wombat: Well-loved, but unlikely to do too much damage unless you drop one on your foot.
Players use brooms to help adjust the pace and direction of a 19-kilogram granite stone that is aimed at a target around 30 metres away at the other end of the 5-metre-wide rink.
The tactics and precision required are extraordinary, leading to moments of high drama and extraordinary tension.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Dean Hewitt and Tahli Gill (mixed pairs)
For the first time, Australia will have curling representation at a Games in the form of Hewitt and Gill.
They'll compete in the mixed pairs competition, which runs from February 2-8.
There are also men's and women's team events.
Cross-country skiing
This is another sport that is not exactly death-defying in a conventional sense, but when you factor in the distances involved, the freezing conditions and awkward terrain, there is definitely a degree of risk.
Competitors race distances from 10 to 50 kilometres with two different styles employed: classic and freestyle.
Classic technique is when an athlete strides forwards with the skis remaining parallel, while freestyle is when you ski from side to side, much like ice skating.
When skiers have to do both styles in the same race, that's called a skiathlon.
Nordic Combined events twin cross country with Ski Jumping, which we'll get to later on in the list.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Phil Bellingham (skiathlon, free sprint, 10km classic, 30km free and team sprint)
- Seve de Campo (skiathlon, free sprint, 10km classic, 30km free and team sprint)
- Casey Wright (skiathlon, free sprint, 10km classic, 30km free and team sprint)
- Jessica Yeaton (skiathlon, free sprint, 10km classic, 30km free and team sprint)
- Lars Young Vik (free sprint, 15km classic and team sprint)
- Hugo Hinckfuss (free sprint, 15km classic and team sprint)
Australia has a six-strong cross country team at the Games, all competing in multiple events.
Biathlon
As above, but with guns.
Competitors ski around a course before taking aim at five targets using rifles that they carry around on their backs.
Any misses are punished by having to add a short penalty lap.
- Sadly, there are no Aussies in action in the biathlon.
Figure skating
Don't let the gracefulness and elegance of what you see on the ice disguise just how dangerous this sport is.
When one spins and leaps (and is occasionally thrown) across the ice, it's only a matter of time before you end up on your backside, no matter how good you are.
When you add another human into the equation, that only adds to the likelihood that your Olympic dreams will come crashing down in a painful way.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Kailani Craine (Women's singles)
- Brendan Kerry (Men's singles)
Craine will compete on February 15 and 17. Kerry will perform on February 8 and 10.
Ice hockey
Aside from being the so-called fastest sport in the world, ice hockey is a brutal mix of exhilarating skill and straight-up savagery — not least in the many, many fights that occur between players in general gameplay.
However, in the Olympics, players fronting up and throwing down is far more frowned upon and will result in severe penalties, so much so that fights are really rare.
Add to this the fact that NHL stars will once again be missing from the Games — the pro skaters have not appeared at an Olympics since 2014 — as well as a slightly wider rink and a host of other minor rule changes.
- Australia does not have an ice hockey team in Beijing.
Alpine skiing
Consisting of six different events, downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom and combined — plus the new parallel slalom event — alpine skiing is the blue riband event of the Winter Games.
Of the five, downhill is the one that really gets the juices pumping.
Skiers hurtle down slopes that can reach a gradient of 70 per cent, achieving speeds of up to 130kph — including going airborne.
Getting things even slightly wrong can spell disaster for the competitors — just ask Austrian legend Hermann Maier, who somehow avoided serious injury when he dramatically flew off course at Nagano in 1998.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Greta Small (downhill, super-G, combined)
- Katie Parker (giant slalom, slalom)
- Louis Muhlen-Schulte (giant slalom, slalom)
- Madi Hoffman was selected but heartbreakingly tore her ACL the following day.
Freestyle skiing
Where the X-Games meets the Olympics. Freestyle skiing is a thrill-a-minute excuse to show off audacious feats of acrobatics across six different disciplines.
Aerials, moguls, halfpipe, big air and slopestyle all combine extraordinary skill and bravery to score points, while moguls also features two runs of cartilage-crushing mounds to negotiate between leaps.
Ski cross pits five skiers against each other in a head-to-head situation down a course featuring turns and leaps — and almost always results in crashes.
Australia has had its greatest Winter Olympics successes in freestyle skiing, winning eight of the 15 total medals in freestyle events, including three golds, three silvers and two bronzes — and it represents our greatest chances of adding to the tally in Beijing.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Jakara Anthony (moguls)
- Sophie Ash (moguls)
- Taylah O'Neill (moguls)
- Britt Cox (moguls)
- Matt Graham (moguls)
- James Matheson (moguls)
- Brodie Summers (moguls)
- Cooper Woods (moguls)
- Gabi Ash (aerials)
- Laura Peel (aerials)
- Danielle Scott (aerials)
- Sami Kennedy-Sim (ski cross)
- Abi Harrigan (half-pipe, slopestyle, big air)
Snowboard
Another discipline where the lines between extreme sport and the Olympics is blurred beyond recognition.
There are five events for snowboard at the Olympics: parallel giant slalom, snowboard cross, halfpipe, slopestyle and big air.
All five have a high chance of crashes, with accidents in the snowboard cross almost a certainty as five racers all compete for the racing line.
Half-pipe, slopestyle and big air are for the acrobats, with both men and women completing death-defying moves to wow the judges.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Josie Baff (snowboard cross)
- Belle Brockhoff (snowboard cross)
- Cam Bolton (snowboard cross)
- Adam Dickson (snowboard cross)
- Jarryd Hughes (snowboard cross)
- Adam Lambert (snowboard cross)
- Emily Arthur (halfpipe)
- Valentino Guseli (halfpipe)
- Scott James (halfpipe)
- Tess Coady (slopestyle, big air)
- Matthew Cox (slopestyle, big air)
Speed skating
This is the less dangerous of the two speed skating events, taking place on a 400-metre long track and where, most of the time, only two racers are allowed on track at once, in different lanes.
The exception to that rule is the team pursuit and mass-start races, which admittedly heightens the risk somewhat.
- There are no Australians in these events.
Short track
Australians know and love short track speed skating — the version of the sport that more resembles a roller derby on a compact, 111-metre-long oval track with six racers all jostling for position — thanks to Steven Bradbury's stunning win at the 2002 Games.
Bradbury crossed the line first in the 1,000-metre final after all his competitors crashed into each other, slamming into the wall in a tangle of body parts and dangerously sharp lengths of steel — one of the reasons competitors have to wear helmets and Kevlar bodysuits to compete.
Bradbury himself knows all about the risks.
The legendary skater lost an estimated four litres of blood in an accident at a World Cup event in 1994, requiring 111 stitches in his thigh.
He also broke his C4 and C5 vertebrae in another training accident in 2000.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Brendan Corey (1,000m, 500m)
Bobsleigh
There are three types of bobsled racing at the Olympics, the four-man, the two-man or two-woman, and the monobob event — in which Bree Walker is a genuine medal chance.
All of them are very fast and very dangerous.
Hurtling down a partially enclosed icy track with multiple twists and turns at speeds up to 150kph, this is a sport that is not for the faint-hearted.
At least they're in an enclosed sleigh, unlike their slide-sport contemporaries…
Who's in it for Australia?
- Bree Walker (monobob, two-women bobsleigh)
- Kiara Reddingius (two-women bobsleigh)
Skeleton
Think bobsleigh, but head-first on a tea tray.
Competitors fly down the same course as the bobsleigh, head first, on their bellies, at 130kph.
Get it wrong and crashes can be catastrophic.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Jaclyn Narracott
- Nick Timmings
Luge
Competitors race on their backs, feet-first, using their feet to steer down the track at 140kph.
Luge also has a doubles event, where the second person lies on top of the other.
Luge has a very recent, tragic Olympic past, with Georgian slider Nodar Kumaritashvili killed after a training crash at the Whistler Sliding Centre ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Games.
Who's in it for Australia?
- Alex Ferlazzo
Ski jumping
Competitors perch atop a vertiginously steep ramp before surrendering themselves to gravity, hurtling down said slope at speeds approaching 100kph before leaping into the void.
Then, they fly. Literally, soaring for up to 140 metres through the air before landing, one foot just ahead of the other, to gain maximum style points to go with their distance.
There are two types of hill: the normal hill — which has a calculation line of 90 metres — and the large hill — which is set at 120 metres.
After watching the vaguely comedic dramatisation of Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards's historic attempts to conquer the "normal hill" at Calgary in 1988, you might be lulled into thinking this foolhardy endeavour is only mildly risky.
So how dangerous is it? Just ask Norwegian Olympic gold medallist Daniel-André Tande.
He suffered multiple brain haemorrhages, a punctured lung and a broken collarbone that has needed 10 screws to stabilise, for which he spent four days in a coma after crashing in training for the world championships.
Australia has never had a competitor crazy enough to leap off the side of a mountain at the Winter Olympics, although Hal Nerdal did go off the normal hill at the 1960 Games in California as part of the nordic combined event.
