The 2006 Winter Olympics were held in Turin, Italy, from 10 to 26 February 2006. Approximately 2,508 athletes from 80 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in these Games. Overall, 84 events in 15 disciplines were contested; 45 events were opened to men, 37 to women and 2 were mixed pairs events. Two disciplines were open only to men: Nordic combined and ski jumping, while figure skating was the only one in which men and women competed together in teams. Eight new events were introduced: snowboard cross, team pursuit, team sprint, and the mass-start race (biathlon). The team sprint events replaced the classical men's 30 kilometers (km) and women's 15 km cross-country distances, held at the previous Winter Games in 2002. In total, there were six more events than in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States.