Everything you need to know for 18 days of curling, figure skating and skiing – and which you can forget shortly afterward

What's new?

Women's ski jumping is being included for the first time. Female ski jumpers have been fighting for inclusion in the games for decades, and a small group of them filed a discrimination lawsuit in Canada in 2008 in an effort to get the female competition in the 2010 Vancouver Games. The court agreed they were being discriminated against, but it wasn't until later that the IOC accepted ski jumping as an Olympic event. The US team is led by Sarah Hendrickson, who won 13 World Cup events last season.

Eleven other events were added to this year's competition: biathlon mixed relay, luge mixed relay and team figure skating. Plus men and women's freestyle halfpipe, freestyle slopestyle, snowboard slopestyle and parallel slalom. Canadian freeski pioneer Sarah Burke helped lobby the IOC to include freeskiing in the games and was a favorite for the gold medal, but died in a training accident in 2012.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A competitor takes a jump during a ski slopestyle training session at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, prior to the 2014 Winter Olympics. Photograph: Gero Breloer/AP

What are America’s chances?

Well, obviously, the Games are all about international camaraderie, etc, but a few countries are better seated than others to bring home the gold: the US, Canada, Germany, Norway and Russia. The US Olympic committee could benefit from its size, as it is sending the largest athlete delegation in history for any nation, but the US might be challenged by a sort of "home field" advantage for winter sports.

As far as hockey goes, the National Hockey League uses smaller rinks than those in Europe, which should give European-based or born players an advantage. US bobsledder Steve Holcomb won the first seven races of the World Cup season, all in North America, but was plagued by a four-year drought for wins in competitions outside North America until January.

Can I complain about NBC’s coverage again?

Not quite. NBC, the US Olympics broadcaster, caught flak in London and Vancouver because of its decision to only televise the most popular competitions in primetime, hours after they ended and the results had spread across the internet.

Another complaint was that only people with cable subscriptions could live stream events online – that hasn’t changed either. The thing is, this formula worked for NBC at both Olympics. NBC Sport Group’s senior vice-president and general manager of digital media, Rick Cordella, said the channel is also expanding its cable coverage for Sochi. “The coverage in primetime is a movie they put on every night,” Cordella told Variety.

Why are people still making so many jokes about curling?

Curling has been late-night comedians’ Winter Olympics punchline for decades. It’s an easy target because of how mundane a person yelling at a large mound (known as “the stone”) is compared to people flinging themselves off mountains or hurtling down ice slides. As the curling jokes have become more repetitive, however, fans have leapt to the sport’s defense and attracted more genuine interest for it.

The main goal for a four-person curling team (known as a “rink”) is to slide the stone across the ice to get closest to the target at the end of the playing area (not known as a rink). A thorough guide to gameplay is here.

US teams have a fair shot at gold, though the women’s team has better chances and is considered an “all-star” group in curling circles. That team includes Erika Brown, 40, who will compete at the Olympics for the third time in Sochi. She first competed in 1988, at age 15, as the youngest member of the US delegation. While the US team’s will put up a respectable showing, the jokes will be kept afloat by things like the Norwegian curling team.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Norway's men's Olympic curling team in uniform: Thomas Ulsrud, Torgor Nergard, Christoffer Svae and Havard Vad Petersson. Photograph: Cassie Kovacevich/AP

What’s the deal with the US figure skating team?

While it’s an audience favorite, US figure skating fans were let down in 2010 when the country failed to gain a medal in the competition for the first time since 1964. Gracie Gold, 18, is considered the country’s best chance, and if she takes home a gold, will be the first athlete with the name “Gold” to do so.

This Winter Olympics also marks the 20th anniversary of one of the darker moments in US figure skating history: the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Figure skater Kerrigan was clubbed in the knee in 1994, after Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly, masterminded the attack. Both skaters were able to compete at Lillehammer, and Harding has always said she didn’t know about the hit.

What’s this about twin toilets?

Reporters are posting a deluge of the quirks and surprises they encounter in Russia, this includes a pair of communal toilets in a security screening facility outside Sochi’s main press center. More communal toilets have been spotted around the city since. Reporters are also sharing images of yellow hotel water, exorbitant Olympic-timed cab prices and plenty of Vladimir Putin hotel decorations.