From ski jumps and luge to engineered snow, here are 5 essential reads about the science of the Winter Olympics
Thousands of the world’s best athletes will flock to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy in February 2026 for the World Championships. XXV Winter Olympic Games. While sports fans focus on the Olympians’ athletic achievements, science fans can also enjoy watching them.
Many winter sports are governed by unique laws of physics – from skiers who speed across the ice to skiers and snowboarders who appear to float in the air. The artificial snow that athletes ski or ride on is a feat of engineering. The Winter Olympics also involve mathematics: mathematicians have found that luck plays a greater role in hockey games than in other sports, such as baseball, basketball and soccer.
To help our readers keep up with both sports and science while watching the games this year, The Conversation US has put together a collection of stories from our archives.
1. Physics of ski jumping
Olympic ski jumping is not for the faint of heart. Athletes landing down a jump Its height is 300 feet (100 metres).before taking off into the air. They can then fly More than the length of a football field Before you land.
like Physicist Amy Pope she wrote in her articleThree main physical concepts allow them to float in the air: gravity, lift, and drag.
Regulations regarding sports reinforce these ideas. Athletes must wear well-fitting suits to ensure they do not get even a little extra lift from any loose or lifted fabric. The length of skis used by athletes should be proportional to their height and weight as well.
AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
“By transforming their skis and bodies into what is essentially a wing, ski jumpers can resist gravity and stay in the air for five to seven seconds,” Pope wrote.
Read more:
Ski Jumping: Flying or falling in style?
2. Physics of sliding sports
Unlike ski jumpers, athletes in Olympic sliding sports — luge, bobsleigh, and skeleton — don’t gain any air, but they reach greater speed while climbing the icy track. About 90 mph (145 km/h).
But just like ski jumping, gravity plays a role in sliding sports. As a physicist John Eric Goff described in his articleIt is the driving force that sends them on the right path. Skaters also wear tight suits that help them gain more speed by cutting through the air. Unlike ski jumpers, they try to avoid drag and will lie as flat as possible on the ski. Bobsled skiers turn using steering controls, while bobsled and skeleton athletes turn using precise body movements.
AFP Photos/Riccardo Mazalan
“It’s hard to see all these tiny movements on TV, but the consequences can be significant — oversteering can lead to track wall collisions or even crashes,” Goff wrote. “Although it may seem that the riders are simply sliding down the icy track at high speeds after setting off, there is a lot more going on.”
3. Hockey mathematics
When hockey players slide across the ice, they are competing with similar forces, such as friction and drag. However, there is also another The concept of playing on the rink: Luck.
Mark Robert Rank He is a sociologist who wrote a book about luck. In his research, he found that compared to other popular team sports, luck plays a larger role in a hockey team’s likelihood of winning a game.
“Anyone who has watched a professional hockey game can recognize the randomness that occurs on the ice. Skates or sticks often deflect shots randomly as players cross the puck’s path. Pucks can bounce awkwardly as they travel across the rink. Goalies may be in the right place at the right time,” Rank wrote.
While Rank focused on NHL games in his study, Olympic athletes may see a similar effect as they take to the ice in Italy.
Read more:
Luck of the Puck in the Stanley Cup – Why chance plays a big role in hockey
4. The engineering behind fake snow
While the Winter Olympics are typically held in countries that receive significant amounts of snow, the host city cannot always rely on Mother Nature to create the essential conditions for competition. It is now common for skiers and snowboarders to compete on artificial ice, and in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo It will be no exception.
AP Photo/Luca Bruno, file
Engineering a complex and delicate phenomenon like snow is not easy Atmospheric scientist Peter Felz He explained in his article. Natural snowflakes are fine, branched crystals that fit together only loosely. Their structures create a light and airy fabric.
Artificial snow is created by blowing pressurized water into cold air, where it quickly freezes into tiny ice droplets. These drops do not take on the same structure as natural snowflakes and end up clumping together tightly.
An athlete’s preference may depend on his or her sport—dense artificial snow may serve a slalom skier cutting tight turns more than a skier who wants a thin cushion of powder to land on.
“Artificial snow is often hard and icy. On the other hand, fresh, natural ‘powder’ snow gives skiers and snowboarders an almost weightless feeling as they descend the mountainside,” Philz explained.
5. Psychological biases
In many Winter Olympic sports, athletes take turns and compete in a specific order. As psychologist Robin Kramer said He explained in his articleThe first and last events in the sequence tend to stick more in your brain. You may remember the first skater to fall into the halfpipe more clearly than the sixth skater, for example.
You are likely to judge performance based on how you judged previous performance in the sequence.
Even Olympic judges are not immune to these decision-making influences. Some sports have pushed for computer analysis of referees to reduce human biases. But it is usually impossible to completely remove the human elements from the registration process.
“The realization that athletes can win or lose Olympic medals based on where they compete in a sequence is surprising and alarming,” Kramer wrote. “As more research is done on these biases, we can learn how to prevent them from influencing important outcomes like who goes home with gold.”
Read more:
Our psychological biases mean that order is important when we judge items sequentially
This story is a summary of articles from the Conversation archives.
