Skiers pulled by horses and 3 more Olympic demo sports you won't find in Sochi

Some sports have a long history in the Olympic Games and generations of athletes have stood atop podiums all over the globe to write their own part in the sport's story.

Additions to the games -- like snowboarding in 1998 -- have already grown to include more athletes and new events. Snowboardcross and now slopestyle have opened more doors for a new school of elite competitors across the discipline.

Many others have their Olympic stories ended before they've even begun. And for some, it's probably for the best.

Ski joering 

You've surely heard of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, but you might not have heard how enamored de Coubertin was with ski joering. 

He first saw the sport on the program of the Nordic Games in 1901, and in 1928, it was an Olympic demonstration sport at the Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Ski joering: a person on skis is pulled by something (dogs, horses, a snowmobile). In 1928, skiers were towed in St. Moritz by horses and competed simultaneously on a frozen lake. The event was swept by the Swiss in its only appearance on an Olympic Winter Games itinerary.

Military Patrol

You take the rugged (ish) elements of cross-country skiing, mountaineering and rifle shooting, and combined they make up an official event of the 1924 Olympic Games in Chamonix.

Military patrol is the father of biathlon.

One officer, one non-commissioned officer, and two privates took off together on a 30 kilometer cross-country skiing course with a total climb of 500 to 1200 metres. Near the halfway point, the team stopped and three members fired 18 shots at a target approximately 250 metres away. For each shot (of the 18) on target, 30 seconds was deducted from the team ski time. 

To finish officially, all four members had to finish the course and the time was taken when the fourth member crossed the line.

Four of six teams finished in the event's only medal year. It was a demonstration sport in 1928, 1936, and 1948.

Ski ballet

Freestyle skiing is full of disciplines that draw attention to gravity-defying athletes who add a certain grace to flying and twisting through the air.

Before slopestyle, there was ski ballet. Really. Flipping and turning and spinning to music on the snow without all of the three-storey building jumps. There are even the double axels of figure skating.

SERIOUSLY. It's all here, from Albertville, the sport's second year as a demonstration sport at the Winter Olympics.

Several athletes felt the sport resembled a gymnastics routine (it does) and should be renamed 'acrobatic skiing'. It was briefly called 'acroski'.

The International Ski Federation ceased all formal competition of the sport after 2000.

Speed skiing

At any local hill, ski patrol will send you packing up your gear if you're caught bailing down a run in a straight line. It's just not safe.

But at the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville, speed skiiers demoed their straight line event down a two-kilometer course in Les Arcs.

Speed skiing athletes regularly exceed speeds of 200 km/h, or 125 mph, which is faster than the terminal velocity of a free-falling skydiver in the belly-to-earth position. In latex suits and aerodynamic helmets, they look almost otherworldly. 

France took first and second in the Olympic demo men's event, with the United States finished third. Finland, Norway and Switzerland rounded out the top three women.

A dark cloud marked the final day of competition in Albertville, as Swiss champion Nicholas Bochatay died on the morning of the speed skiing final. He was practicing on another hill before his event began when he collided with a snow grooming machine and sustained fatal internal injuries.

The youngest speed skier to have exceeded 120 km/hour was just 7-years old. His current record, at 14 years, is 203.83 km.

[Courtesy: klfrance]