Olympic Winter Total Events

Here is a list of how many medal events each winter Olympics has had.  If I had more skill, I'd present this as a graph. 


2014 98
2010 86
2006 84
2002 78
1998 68
1994 61
1992 57
1988 46
1984 39
1980 38
1976 37
1972 35
1968 35
1964 34
1960 28
1956 25
1952 22
1948 22
1936 17
1932 14
1928 14
1924 16


There are now more than twice as many medal events as there were in 1988.  That's a mere 26 years ago.  At this rate, the 2042 games (set to be hosted by Dubai) will have more than 200.  The mind boggles.  Is that a crazy thing to project?  Those 26 years represent 7 different Olympics.  If you count back 7 Olympics from 1988, you get 1960, which had 28 events, or a little more than half of 1988.  And only five Olympics prior there were exactly half of that, with 14 events.  So it could happen.
I'm a little disappointed at how little creativity has gone into this explosion of events.  Broadly, the only discipline that has been added since then is snowboarding.  Everything else is just the balancing of women with men or a rejiggering of distance.  I would gladly cut down, say cross country skiing from 12 events to six, if it meant that we could get something new to watch and cheer for.  (And I like cross country skiing!)  Get with it, IOC!