Winter is looming, and athletes are preparing for all kinds of seasonal sports. Skiing, snowboarding and hockey might be the dominant choices of participants and spectators, but they represent just a fraction of all the games winter has to offer. Even the 2014 Olympics added 12 new sports to the competition.

It's that time of year again, so we rounded up some of the strangest winter sports -- with the term "sport" used lightly. Some were Olympic contenders, and others were just cut completely.

Ski ballet was a freestyle competitive event and even made it into the 1988 and 1992 Olympics as a demonstration sport, but it couldn't be taken seriously enough to be added to the official list of Olympic sports. Another close contender was skijoring. Still around today, this sport in which a skier is pulled by a dog or horse, was a demonstration sport in the 1928 Olympics. That was its last Olympic appearance despite attempts by the International Federation of Sleddog Sports to include it in the 2014 Olympics.

Other sports seem to disappear and reappear. The Snowmobile Long Jump and other snowmobile freestyle events have seen a lot of controversy due to the high risk of injury and death, so these events come and go in the competitive world. Similarly, shovel racing gained popularity, but after some concerns of injury and liability, it disappeared for a while and then resurfaced again a few years later.

Then there are the variations on traditional sports. One of these is bandy, which seems to be a combination of hockey, soccer, broomball and field hockey all wrapped up into one competitive event. Biathlon, a combination of rifle shooting and cross-country skiing, is an Olympic sport. And ice climbing adds a challenging icy layer to rock climbing as participants try to climb frozen waterfalls and ice cliffs.

The realm of winter sports seems to be constantly evolving, and with that change comes the birth of new, and sometimes strange, athletic events.

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