Winter Olympic Games
The Winter Olympic Games are the cold-weather counterpart to the Summer Olympic Games. They feature winter sports held on ice or snow, such as ice skating and skiing.
The First Olympic Winter Games were inaugurated on January 25, 1924 in Chamonix, France, although at the time they were not yet called Olympic Winter Games. Only in 1926, the Games were called thus. Since then, the Games have been held every four years, with the exception of the 1940 and 1944. Since 1994, the Winter Games are no longer held in the same year as the Games of the Olympiad (or Summer Olympics). The most recent Winter Games were the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Medal sports
- Alpine skiing, including downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G, combined
- Biathlon
- Bobsled
- Cross-country skiing
- Curling
- Figure skating, including single, pairs, ice dancing
- Freestyle skiing, including moguls, aerial
- Ice hockey
- Luge
- Nordic combined
- Skeleton
- Ski jumping
- Snowboarding, including slalom, halfpipe
- Speed skating, including short track speed skating
Olympic medals 1924-1998 (Top 10)
| Rank | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1. | Russia / CIS / Soviet Union | 108 | 77 | 74 | 259 |
| 2. | Norway | 88 | 87 | 69 | 244 |
| 3. | United States | 59 | 59 | 40 | 158 |
| 4. | West Germany / Germany | 57 | 53 | 45 | 155 |
| 5. | Austria | 39 | 53 | 53 | 145 |
| 6. | Finland | 38 | 49 | 48 | 135 |
| 7. | East Germany | 39 | 36 | 35 | 110 |
| 8. | Sweden | 39 | 28 | 36 | 103 |
| 9. | Switzerland | 29 | 31 | 32 | 92 |
| 10. | Italy | 27 | 27 | 23 | 77 |
Past Winter Olympics
With exceptional participants and happenings.
- 1924 Winter Olympic Games: Chamonix , France
- 1928 Winter Olympic Games: St. Moritz, Switzerland
- Sonja Henie, Norway, figure skating
- 1932 Winter Olympic Games: Lake Placid, USA
- Sonja Henie, Norway, figure skating
- 1936 Winter Olympic Games: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
- Sonja Henie, Norway, figure skating (third gold medal)
- 1940: not held due to WWII; scheduled for Sapporo, Japan
- 1944: not held due to WWII; scheduled for Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
- 1948 Winter Olympic Games: St. Moritz , Switzerland
- Dick Button, USA, figure skating
- 1952 Winter Olympic Games: Oslo, Norway
- Stein Eriksen, Norway, giant slalom
- Dick Button, USA, figure skating
- 1960 Winter Olympic Games: Squaw Valley, USA
- Carol Heiss, USA, figure skating
- USA Men's ice hockey, gold medal
- 1964 Winter Olympic Games: Innsbruck, Austria
- 1968 Winter Olympic Games: Grenoble, France
- Jean-Claude Killy, France, three alpine skiing gold medals
- Peggy Fleming, USA, figure skating
- 1972 Winter Olympic Games: Sapporo, Japan
- 1976 Winter Olympic Games: Innsbruck, Austria
- Franz Klammer, Austria, alpine skiing (gold medal, downhill)
- Dorothy Hamill, USA, figure skating
- 1980 Winter Olympic Games: Lake Placid, USA
- USA Men's ice hockey (the "Miracle on Ice") gold medal vs USSR
- Eric Heiden, U.S., five speed-skating gold medals
- 1984 Winter Olympic Games: Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
- Katarina Witt, East Germany, figure skating
- Torvill and Dean, U.K., ice dancing
- 1988 Winter Olympic Games: Calgary, Canada
- Alberto Tomba, Italy, alpine skiing
- Katarina Witt, East Germany, figure skating
- The Jamaican bobsled team
- Britain's "Eddy The Eagle Edwards", soars
- 1992 Winter Olympic Games: Albertville, France
- Kristi Yamaguchi, USA, figure skating
- 1994 Winter Olympic Games: Lillehammer, Norway
- Tommy Moe, USA, alpine skiing
- Oksana Baiul, Ukraine, figure skating (with USA skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding providing a memorable sideshow)
- 1998 Winter Olympic Games: Nagano, Japan
- Georg Hackl, Germany, luge (third consecutive gold medal)
- Czech Republic, led by Dominik Hasek win men's hockey gold.
- 2002 Winter Olympic Games: Salt Lake City, USA
- Georg Hackl, Germany, luge (fifth consecutive medal)
- Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Norway, Biathlon
- Simon Amman, Switzerland, Ski jumping
- Two sets of gold medals awarded in pairs figure skating, to Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, and Russia's Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, because of judging scandal.
- Canada: Gold medal in men's and women's ice hockey
Future Winter Olympics
- 2006 Winter Olympics: Turin (Torino), Italy
- 2010 Winter Olympics: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
See also
External links
- The official websites of the latest and next games: http://www.saltlake2002.com, http://www.torino2006.com
- History of the Olympics: an interesting site, http://www.janecky.com/olympics/, features medal counts and other information