Officially, the 2010 Winter Olympic Program includes 7 sports, some featuring multiple disciplines. NBCOlympics.com considers certain disciplines to be sports, thus presenting 15 total. Within the 15 sports are 86 medal events, including two that are new: men's and women's ski cross, in the sport of freestyle skiing.

The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held on February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the resort town of Whistler, British Columbia and in the Vancouver suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University Endowment Lands. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games are being organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC).

The 2010 Winter Olympics are the third Olympics hosted by Canada, and the first by the province of British Columbia. Previously, Canada was home to the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Following Olympic tradition, then Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan received the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. The flag was raised on February 28, 2006, in a special ceremony, and was on display at VancouverCity Hall until the Olympic opening ceremony. The event was officially opened by Governor General Michaëlle Jean

82 National Olympic Committees have entered teams in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, Peru and Serbia will make their winter Olympic debuts. Also Jamaica, Mexico and Morocco will return to the games after missing the Turin Games. Tonga sought to make its Winter Olympic debut by entering a single competitor in luge, attracting some media attention, but he crashed in the final round of qualifying. Luxembourg qualified two athletes but will not participate because one did not reach the criteria set by the NOC and the other was injured before the games.