This year is when the 21st First (XXI) Winter Olympic Games are taking place in Vancouver, Canada. Along with the Football World Cup this is going to be one of this year's most watched and most important international sporting events. Although most of the events that make up the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics will take place in this city a number will also be held in the resort of Whistler and the Vancouver Suburb of Richmond.

This year sees Canada being the hosts of this event for the third time and the opening ceremony takes place on Friday 12th February. Then following the opening ceremony the events will take place over the next 16 days. Then on the 28th February the closing ceremony will take place and the Olympic Torch will be passed to Russia who will be hosts of these games in 2014.

So what sorts of events will one expect to watch when the Winter Olympics are taking place during the coming weeks? This year there is a total of 15 winter sports events happening during the course of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and is divided up into three different categories.

First we have events that are classed as ice sports and include such as bobsled which this year seems a team from Jamaica participating. Then there is the luge, skeleton and which Britain have a hope of winning some medals in. At the Winter Olympic Games held in Turin in 2006, Shelly Rudman competing for Britain one silver medal in this event. Also in the group are events such as ice hockey, figure, speed and short track speed skating as well as the sport of curling.

Then the next group of events that will be taking place at this time are in the group known as the alpine skiing and snowboarding events. In here are not only alpine skiing and snowboarding but also freestyle skiing and snowboarding.

The last group of sports that are going to be taking place during this important event are those classified as being Nordic events. In this group there are four sports which are ski jumping, biathlon, cross country skiing and Nordic Combined.

The sport of Nordic Combined is one of the most demanding of all the events that will take place during the Winter Olympics. It not only involves cross country skiing but also jumping as well. The time between when each part of this event takes place can vary sometimes the time between completing a ski jump and then skiing cross country may only be about 35 minutes. Whereas at other times the space between each part of this event can be a few hours.