FW: Hot. Cool. Huh?

The evolution of the winter Olympics THE winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has as its motto "Hot. Cool. Yours." Odd, yes. But explainable. The organisers want to attract younger viewers and to broaden the games' appeal to more countries. (The gold-medal rankings teem with places like tiny Norway that excel at numerous, esoteric events). This year's 12 new events were chosen partly because they attract lots of YouTube views and Twitter followers. They include the ski half-pipe (tricks in a snowy half-dome to pumping music) and snowboard slopestyle (a 655-metre mountain course combining stunts in the air, rails and very high jumps). Over the past 60 years the number of events has snowballed to 98, of which 20 "cool" ones have been added since 1992. Our story from this week's issue is here.

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