The winter season is now going strong, and athletes all over the world have a chance to show that their Winter Olympic ambitions are more than just talk.

It is up to the GB team to prove, as the Winter Olympics is threatened with relegation from UK TV's free-to-air list, that the British public have plenty to get excited about from their sofas come February.

Last week, Eleanor Oldroyd suggested one reason to watch: the propensity for Winter Olympic events to go horribly, entertainingly, wrong. As she was writing that, British skeleton's Kristan Bromley produced another reason: the chance of a GB gold medal in Vancouver, having fought his way to bronze in the first World Cup event of the season.

This blog isn't just about reasons to watch in February, but also what to watch now (and where to watch it), how things like events and qualifying work, and the latest on the British team's Olympic hopes.

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We're now less than 100 days away from the 2010 Winter Olympics, which begin in the Canadian city of Vancouver on 12 February.

As a member of our Olympics reporting team and an ice hockey commentator, I'll be in Vancouver (and Whistler) alongside Rob Hodgetts and Anna Thompson, covering the Games for the BBC Sport website.

But the Games won't just emerge out of nothing. The world's top winter sports athletes are already getting stuck into the winter season - there is action all over the place as they cram in training sessions and try to get the kind of results, and confidence, that will see them on to medals in Canada.

Here's a round-up of what's been going on, including links to the best stuff on the BBC and elsewhere, and a look ahead to the coverage we've got coming up.

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Early next week, there will be a change to how you leave comments on this blog - we're upgrading our current registration system to a new and improved one. When you log in to the new system, you will be prompted to upgrade your existing account, and you should be able to do that with a minimum of fuss. More details on this can be found on the BBC Internet Blog.

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