From skiers to bobsledders and snowboarders to figure skaters, thousands of athletes across the world are making their way from more than 200 hundred countries to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics. While the opening ceremony kicks off Friday at 8 p.m. in Pyeongchang, South Korea, some of the games will get a head start on the competition Thursday.

The XXIII Olympic Winter Games offer something for everyone, whether it’s adrenaline-inducing snowboarding, fast-paced hockey or graceful figure skating. To catch the Olympics, tune into NBC, which will offer a televised and online broadcast for those in the United States.

ALPINE SKIING

Speed and agility = gold

Alpine skiing is where a skier slides down a snow-covered slope on skis with fixed heel bindings. The discipline is comprised of largely two types: speed (velocity) events and technical (skills) events.

The speed events are Downhill and Super Giant Slalom (commonly known as "Super-G"), and the technical events are Giant Slalom and Slalom.

Events ranked by the fastest average speed are: Downhill, Super-G, Giant Slalom and Slalom. Events ranked by the most number of gates are Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G and Downhill.

Slalom is raced on a course that demands short and rapid turns. In the Downhill, the average velocity of the skiers as they pass a gate in the fastest section of the course is around 60 mph.

FIGURE SKATING

Grace under pressure

Figure skating was the first winter sport included in the Olympics in 1908. The four Olympic disciplines are men’s singles, ladies’ singles, pair skating and ice dancing. Skaters generally perform two programs (short and long) which may include spins, jumps, moves in the field, lifts, throw jumps, death spirals and other elements.

HOCKEY

A new era for men

The National Hockey League will not break for the 2018 Winter Olympics, as it has since since 1998 when professional players were allowed to participate in Olympic hockey competition, leaving most national teams without their best players. Participation by NHL players shied dominance in Olympic hockey to Canada, which won gold in 2002, 2010 and 2014. Without many of the world’s best players in Pyeongchang, a new nation could rise to dominance.

SLEDDING

Ice, gravity and 90 mph

The Winter Games provide three types of races where sledders slide down an icy track at speeds approaching 90 miles

per hour: The bobsled, a mostly-enclosed toboggan carrying either two or four people; the luge, a much smaller sled carrying one or two people; and the skeleton, a tiny sled with room for only one.

SNOWBOARD

A big debut

Snowboard big air is new to the Olympics in 2018. The event features one single jump with riders performing the most difficult trick possible. Qualification consists of two runs, with the rider’s best run counting. The top 12 compete in the final, which features three runs with the best two counting. Scores are determined by a panel of judges.

QUICK GLANCE

A look at sports rarely seen outside of the Olympics

Nordic Combined

This sport brings cross-country and ski jumping together. It originated from a 19th century Norwegian ski festival where athletes engaged in a mix of cross-country skiing and ski jumping. The sport was officially adopted as an event in the first Olympic Winter Games.

Biathlon

This sport combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, two events that are very different from each other. Athletes strap the guns on their backs, ski for a certain distance and stop to shoot at a designated target.

Curling

The object of this shuffleboard-like sport is to get the stones as close as possible to the center of four concentric circles known as the house. The center of the house is called the button. Two teams of four take turns sliding their stones toward the house, and the team with the stone closest to the button wins the round, which is called an end. That team is subsequently awarded an additional point for each of its stones that lies closer to the button than the opponent’s closest stone. One match is composed of ten ends.