Today marks the official start of the 2014 Winter Olympics and it’s safe to say there is a fair amount of excitement in the air.

Over the next two weeks, athletes from all over the globe will be competing in a whole host of exciting events to claim ultimate victory. So to get you into that Olympic spirit, here are 10 interesting facts about this historic event…

Sochi, this year’s host, is considered to be Europe’s longest city with a whopping length of 92 miles.
The first ever Winter Olympics were held at Chamonix, France in 1924.
The oldest ever Winter Olympic gold medallist was 54 year old curler, Sir Robin Welsh Senior.
The famous Jamaican bobsleigh team who inspired the Disney film Cool Runnings only formed four months before the 1988 Calgary games.
The 2010 Vancouver games cost Canada an astounding $5bn in security and infrastructure projects alone.

Ironically, the 1998 Nagano Games were continually disrupted by too much snow.
Due to a lack of snow at the 1994 Innsbruck games, soldiers had to bring down snow and blocks of ice from the Austrian mountains to create ski slopes and luge runs.
A total of four athletes have won medals in both the summer and winter Olympics, in different sports.
The Winter Olympics’ most successful country is Norway, which boasts an impressive total of 303 medals.
Brand new events for this year’s games include the luge relay, ski half pipe and women’s ski jumping.

If this has got you geared up for this year’s Winter Olympics and you’d like to try your hand at something new, why not check out our range of snow based experiences?