If the weekend's luge, downhill and slalom hasn't already got you hooked on the Winter Olympics 2010, then there's no hope for you - except perhaps the curling. Sadly, the games only lasts a few weeks and, if you blink, you could miss all your favourite events before you know it.
For example, do you happen to know when the Biathlon is off the top of your head? No. Right, and who could live with themselves if they missed what is possibly the truest and equally most bizarre competitions in the calendar outside of Finnish wife carrying?
But we digress. Instead, go and download these five free iPhone/iPod touch apps for Vancouver 2010 and make sure you're always up to date and with the Olympic spirit.
Guide2010: Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games
Your first port of call should most certainly be the Guide2010. It's the really well put together official app for spectators all over the world, using your location to sync in with the timetable so that you know when each event is happening according to your time zone.
There's detailed info on each heat and competition including the venues and results as well. There's also a section of headlines from the games which you can click through to the full stories. Great app and very easy to use.
AsapWinterGames
AsapWinterGames offers an alternative approach to following the news out in Vancouver by pulling in all the tweets in the Twittersphere (yes, we did just use that word) that mention or have reference to the Winter Olympics 2010. That includes all talk of the athletes taking part as well.
The app allows you to search by event, by the athlete or just the whole lot. You can also choose your favourite competitors to make a Twitter list all of your own. Very simple and quite a lot of fun both if you want the small stories and you want to see the international banter as well.
SportLogik
Watching the games is one thing but understanding exactly what it is the competitors are trying to do with triple toe-loops, 360 methods and furious brushing is another. SportLogik is a general piece of mini-database software which has a section totally devoted to Winter Games. It'll give you a multitude of facts, including how many events there are - 15 disciplines for men, 13 for women and 84 events altogether, if you really want to know - and breaks them down a little further.
It also includes a section on news, but the best thing to do is go back in to the sports library and look up each one individually. Under ski jump, bobsleigh and all the other favourites you'll find a section on the rules, a glossary of terms, the equipment the pros use, the governing bodies and associations and a list of details on previous medal winners which includes where, when and how they did it. Not bad, eh? Absolutely priceless for impressing people at home as well as appreciating it all much more too.
Cowbell2010 or Cowbell!
You probably know what's coming here. This is novelty app city. Think iPint but with a large cowbell on the screen which makes the Alpine-esque noise as you shake your handset.
The big difference between the two is that Cowbell! is free whereas Cowbell2010 offers you the chance to dress your virtual instrument in the flag of your country and costs 59p. It's well worth the additional outlay for the added patriotism.
Again, this is a fantastic one to enjoy from the sofa with friends in a chorus of cowbell. If you have a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell, then you know what to do.
SkiJumpLite
There's plenty of winter sports apps out there that'll cost you before you realise they're utter nonsense. What sets SkiJumpLite above the others is that it's free and, stuck in a non-snowy place, that's as close as you're going to get to taking part in the games any time soon.
It's pretty simple, as you may have guessed. The idea is to perform a series of ski jumps by touch and tilting the screen and, if your score is sufficiently high, it'll get uploaded to a virtual hall of fame.