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10 Fun Facts: Winter Olympics 2014

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Rachel Larson Student Contributor, Kenyon College
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Ally Bruschi Student Contributor, Kenyon College
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Kenyon chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

It’s that time again when the world’s best athletes compete for two weeks, and we sit on the couch watching. The Winter Olympics are just as good as, if not better than, the Summer Olympics. No, you don’t have soccer or swimming, but come on – the skeleton, the moguls, the figure skating! If you’ve been watching any events, you’re sure to know that the Norwegians kick ass and that the US has twelve medals as of now. But here are ten fun facts about the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics that maybe you didn’t know.

1. This is the first year that the women’s ski jump is a sport! Eleven other events debuted this year, but we think this is the most exciting. Who run the world?

2. Shaun White is still flying, but no longer a tomato. Now he’s rocking short, auburn hair, as he donated his hair to Locks of Love. And it’s on YouTube, because why not?

3. The Jamaican Bobsled team is competing in the 2-man bobsleigh race for the first time since 2002. Initially low on funding, they raised the money needed to make their way to the games in Russia. Though I don’t think anyone sang, “We are Jamaica we have a bobsled team” to do so, like in Cool Runnings.

4. THIS happened.

5. The Olympic Village is stocked with 100,000 condoms, as it has been every year since the Sydney 2000 Olympics, when 70,000 was not near enough. Hey, if you were surrounded by hundreds of ripped Olympians for two weeks straight, what would you do in your spare time? In fact, many athletes this year use Tinder to hook up with fellow Olympians.

6. You can buy USA’s Opening Ceremony hats on eBay for $100-200.

7. The WINTER Olympics in RUSSIA actually have much warmer weather than we do here in Ohio. That’s not too hard, considering the winter that we have had – remember last week when we woke up to negative twenty degree weather? With average highs in the fifties and sixties, Sochi sounds just tropical.

8. A not-so-fun fact is that gays were banned from competing in Sochi. A fun fact is that Canada created this ad in response.

9. As serious and impressive as the Olympics are, the 2014 games have ridiculously cutesy mascots – a cartoon polar bear, hare, and leopard.  The mascots for the Paralympics are a ray of light and a snowflake.

10. And finally, you can always do this if you get bored of watching sports.

 

Sources:

http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/story/_/id/8133052/athletes-spill-details-dirty-secrets-olympic-village-espn-magazine

http://financesonline.com/10-amazing-facts-about-winter-olympics/

 

Ally Bruschi is a senior political science major at Kenyon College. She spent this past summer interning as a writer with both The Daily Meal, a digital media group  dedicated to "all things food and drink" and The Borgen Project, a non-profit organization that partners with U.S. policymakers to alleviate global poverty. Before entering the "real world" of jobs, however, Ally spent many summers as a counselor at an all-girls summer camp in Vermont, aka the most wonderful place on earth. A good book, a jar of peanut butter, a well-crafted Spotify playlist, and a lazy dog could get her through even the worst of days.