With the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games to kick off just six weeks into 2014, Olympic-qualifying trials scheduled to be held over the next few weeks will determine who will earn the coveted slots on the slate of approximately 250.

Team USA’s finest athletes  will travel to Sochi to compete over 17 days and across 98 medal events including the biathlon, bobsled, skeleton, curling, ice hockey, luge, Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, ski jumping, snowboarding, figure skating and long and short-track speedskating.

In the United States, qualifying trials for spots on the Olympic teams will take place during upcoming weeks, continuing into the first week of 2014.

Olympic-hopeful athletes will be competing in the sports of men’s and women’s short and long-track speedskating, men’s and women’s curling, as well as men’s and women’s ski jumping and Nordic combined, with competitions scheduled to take place in various locations (some of which have already taken place) throughout the country as follows:

Beginning Friday, November 15, 2013, NBC Olympics began broadcasting over 34 hours of live coverage of men’s and women’s short and long-track speedskating, men’s and women’s curling, women’s hockey and men’s and women’s ski jumping and Nordic combined. Viewers can tune in on NBC and NBCSN, as well as NBC Sports Live Extra to catch the action.

Televised coverage of the trials by NBC took place November 15-17 in Fargo, North Dakota with curling. Next women’s hockey was up, with two of six hockey games between the United States and Canada televised on NBCSN, one from Grand Forks, North Dakota on December 20 and the other from St. Paul, Minnesota on December 28.

The U.S. men’s and women’s speedskating trials will be broadcast between NBC and NBCSN from December 27 through January 1 in Kearns, Utah, with short track trials to follow from January 3-5.

Meanwhile, in Park City Utah, live coverage by NBC will begin for the men’s and women’s ski jumping and Nordic combined on December 29. NBC will also provide coverage in January for the United States Figure Skating Championship in Boston from January 5-12, 2014, which is the last qualifying competition for securing one of the prestigious spots on the 2014 U.S. Olympic team.

Following the Olympic Winter Games, which will be held from February 7-23, 2014, the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games will take place in Sochi beginning March 7 and running through March 16. 

Hoping to make the 2014 team are five returning Paralympic-military athletes, including Andy Soule, retired from the U.S. Army, who competed in the biathlon and cross-country skiing in Vancouver, Canada. 

Also hoping to return four years after Vancouver are alpine skiers, Heath Calhoun and Chris Devlin-Young, retired from the U.S. Army and U.S. Coast Guard respectively; Nordic skier Sean Halstead, retired from the U.S. Air Force, and wheelchair curler Patrick McDonald, who retired from the U.S. Army.

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