Early years at the 1908 Olympics A predecessor, the
Nordic Games, were organised by General
Viktor Gustaf Balck in
Stockholm, Sweden, in 1901 and were held again in 1903 and 1905 and then every fourth year thereafter until 1926. Balck was a charter member of the
IOC and a close friend of
Olympic Games founder
Pierre de Coubertin. He attempted to have winter sports, specifically
figure skating, added to the Olympic programme but was unsuccessful until the
1908 Summer Olympics in London. Three years later, Italian count
Eugenio Brunetta d'Usseaux proposed that the IOC stage a week of winter sports included as part of the
1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. The organisers opposed this idea because they desired to protect the integrity of the Nordic Games and were concerned about a lack of facilities for winter sports. The idea was resurrected for the
1916 Games, which were to be held in Berlin, Germany. A
winter sports week with
speed skating, figure skating,
ice hockey and
Nordic skiing were planned, but the 1916 Olympics was cancelled after the outbreak of
World War I. and an ice hockey tournament. Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned from competing in the games. At the
IOC Congress held the following year it was decided that the host nation of the
1924 Summer Olympics, France, would host a separate "International Winter Sports Week" under the patronage of the IOC.
Chamonix was chosen to host this week (actually 11 days) of events.
The 1924 games in Chamonix proved to be a success when more than 250 athletes from 16 nations competed in 16 events. The first gold medal awarded was won by
Charles Jewtraw of the United States in the 500-meter speed skate.
Sonja Henie of Norway, at just 11 years old, competed in the ladies' figure skating and, although finishing last, became popular with fans.
Gillis Grafström of Sweden defended his 1920 gold medal Germany remained banned until 1925, and instead hosted a series of games called
Deutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the winter edition of 1922 (which predated the first Winter Olympics). In 1925 the IOC decided to create a separate winter event and the 1924 games in Chamonix were retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympics. Fluctuating weather conditions challenged the hosts. The
opening ceremony was held in a blizzard while warm weather conditions plagued sporting events throughout the rest of the games. Because of the weather the 10,000 metre speed-skating event had to be abandoned and officially cancelled. The weather was not the only noteworthy aspect of the 1928 games:
Sonja Henie of
Norway returned to the Winter Olympics to make history when she won the
ladies' figure skating at the age of 15. She became the youngest Olympic champion in history, a distinction she held for 70 years, and went on to defend her title at the next two Winter Olympics. and went on to win silver in 1932, becoming the most decorated men's figure skater to date. The
next Winter Olympics, held in Lake Placid, New York, United States was the first to be hosted outside of Europe. Seventeen nations and 252 athletes participated. Sonja Henie defended her Olympic title, won the gold medal in the
men's bobsleigh event to join
Gillis Grafström as the only athletes to have won gold medals in both the
Summer and Winter Olympics. The German towns of
Garmisch and Partenkirchen joined to organise the
1936 Winter Games, held from 6–16 February. This was the last time the
Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same country in the same year.
Alpine skiing made its Olympic debut, but skiing teachers were barred from entering because they were considered to be professionals. Due to the ongoing war, the
1944 games, originally scheduled for
Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, were cancelled.
1948 to 1962 St. Moritz was selected to host the
first post-war games, in 1948. Switzerland's neutrality had protected the town during World War II, and most venues from the 1928 games remained in place, which made St. Moritz a logical choice. It became the first city to host a Winter Olympics twice. Twenty-eight countries competed in Switzerland, but athletes from Germany and Japan were not invited because their Olympic committees were not yet recognized. They returned in 1952. The
Olympic Flame tradition was
introduced at the 1952 games in
Oslo: the flame was lit in the fireplace of the house of 19th-century Norwegian skiing pioneer
Sondre Nordheim and the first Winter torch relay was conducted by 94 torchbearers entirely on their skis.
Bandy, a popular sport in the Nordic countries, was featured as a demonstration sport, though
only Norway,
Sweden,
and Finland fielded teams. Norwegian athletes won 17 medals, which outpaced all the other nations. They were led by
Hjalmar Andersen who won three gold medals in four events in the
speed skating competition. After not being able to host the games in 1944,
Cortina d'Ampezzo was selected to organise the
1956 Winter Olympics. At the opening ceremonies the final torchbearer, Guido Caroli, entered the
Olympic Stadium on ice skates. As he skated around the stadium his skate caught on a cable and he fell and burned his arm, nearly extinguishing the flame. He was able to recover and light the cauldron. These were the first Winter Games to be televised, and the first Olympics ever broadcast to an international audience, though no television rights were sold until the
1960 Summer Olympics in
Rome. The Cortina games were used to test the feasibility of televising large sporting events.
Chiharu Igaya won the first Winter Olympics medal
for Japan and the continent of Asia when he placed second in the slalom. The IOC awarded the
1960 Olympics to
Squaw Valley, United States. The opening and closing ceremonies were the firsts produced by
Walt Disney Company. The Squaw Valley Olympics was the first Winter Games to have a dedicated athletes' village, the first to use a computer (courtesy of
IBM) to tabulate results, and the first to feature female speed skating events. This edition is the only one to date to not have bobsleigh competitions, as the number of countries registered in the event was insufficient and the costs of building the track were too high for the Organizing Committee. To replace the event, an extra edition from the
FIBT World Championship was held. Held in the French town of
Grenoble, the
1968 Winter Olympics were the first Olympic Games to be broadcast in colour. There were 1,158 athletes from 37 nations competing in 35 events. For the first time, the organizers chose to decentralize the Games to save costs and the events were spread across three long distances clusters, which led to the need to build three Olympic Villages. Along with the high costs, the organisers claimed that this was necessary to accommodate technological advances, however, critics disputed this, alleging that the layout would incorporate the best possible venues for television broadcasts at the athletes' expense. Eventually only
Austrian Karl Schranz, who earned more than the other skiers, was excluded from the competition. Canada boycotted the
1972 and the
1976 ice hockey tournaments in protest at not being able to use players from professional leagues. Canadian authorities also accused the Soviet Union of using state-sponsored athletes, who were de facto professionals.
Francisco Fernández Ochoa became the first and, as of 2022, the only
Spaniard to win a Winter Olympic gold medal when he triumphed in the
slalom. The
1976 Winter Olympics had initially been awarded in 1970 to
Denver,
Colorado in the United States. These Games would have coincided with the year of Colorado's
centennial and the
United States Bicentennial. However, the increasing costs of the event and the oil crisis led to a local plebiscite held in November 1972, that resulted in the city withdrawing from hosting the Games, as the people of Colorado voted against public funding of the Games by a 3:2 margin. The IOC responded by offering the Games to
Vancouver-
Garibaldi,
British Columbia in
Canada, which had previously been a finalist bid for the 1976 Games. However, a change in the provincial government resulted in an administration that did not support the Olympic bid, so the IOC's offer was rejected.
American speed-skater
Eric Heiden set either an Olympic or World record in every one of the five
events in which he competed, winning a total of five individual gold medals and breaking the record for most individual golds in a single Olympics (both Summer and Winter).
Hanni Wenzel won both the slalom and giant slalom and her country,
Liechtenstein, became the smallest nation to produce an Olympic gold medallist.
1984 to 1998 , winner of five Olympic medals in Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer
Sapporo, Japan, and
Gothenburg, Sweden, were front-runners to host the
1984 Winter Olympics. It was therefore a surprise when
Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, was selected as host. The Games were well-organised and not affected by the run-up to the
war that engulfed the country eight years later. Her medal total was equalled by
Finnish ski jumper
Matti Nykänen, who won all three events in his sport.
Alberto Tomba,
an Italian skier, made his Olympic debut by winning both the giant slalom and slalom. East German
Christa Rothenburger won the women's 1,000 metre speed skating event. Seven months later she would earn a silver in track cycling at the
Summer Games in
Seoul, to become the only athlete to win medals in both a Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year. Former
Yugoslavian republics
Croatia and
Slovenia made their debuts as independent nations; most of the former
Soviet republics still competed as a single team known as the
Unified Team, but the
Baltic States made independent appearances for the first time since before World War II.
New Zealand skier
Annelise Coberger became the first Winter Olympic medallist from the southern hemisphere when she won a silver medal in the women's slalom. The
1994 Winter Olympics, held in
Lillehammer, Norway, were the first Winter Games to be held in a different year from the Summer Games. This change resulted from the decision reached in the
91st IOC Session (1986) to separate the Summer and Winter Games and place them in alternating even-numbered years. Lillehammer is the northernmost city to ever host the Winter Games. It was the second time the Games were held in Norway, after the
1952 Winter Olympics in
Oslo, and the first time the
Olympic Truce was observed. As a result, after the
dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the
Czech Republic and
Slovakia made their Olympic debuts. The women's figure skating competition drew media attention when
American skater Nancy Kerrigan was injured on 6 January 1994, in an assault planned by the ex-husband of opponent
Tonya Harding. Both skaters competed in the Games, but the gold medal was narrowly won by
Oksana Baiul who became
Ukraine's first Olympic champion, while Kerrigan won the silver medal.
Johann Olav Koss of
Norway won three gold medals, coming first in all of the distance speed skating events. 13-year-old
Kim Yoon-Mi became the youngest-ever Olympic gold medallist when South Korea won the women's 3,000-metre speed skating relay.
Bjørn Dæhli of Norway won a medal in four out of five cross-country events, becoming the most decorated Winter Olympian until then.
Russia won the most events, with eleven gold medals, while Norway achieved 26 podium finishes, collecting the most medals overall on home ground.
Juan Antonio Samaranch described Lillehammer as "the best Olympic Winter Games ever" in his closing ceremony speech. The
1998 Winter Olympics were held in the Japanese city of
Nagano and were the first Games to host more than 2,000 athletes.
Bjørn Dæhlie of
Norway won three gold medals in Nordic skiing, becoming the most decorated Winter Olympic athlete, with eight gold medals and twelve medals overall.
Austrian Hermann Maier survived a crash during the downhill competition and returned to win gold in the
super-G and the giant slalom.
2002 to 2026 After a tumultuous host city process, the
2002 Winter Olympics were held in
Salt Lake City, United States. 2,399 athletes from 77 National Olympic Committees participated in 78 events in 7 sports.
German Georg Hackl won a silver in the singles luge, becoming the first athlete in Olympic history to win medals in the same individual event in five consecutive Olympics. The Canadians appeared to have skated well enough to win the competition, yet the Russians were awarded the gold. The
French judge,
Marie-Reine Le Gougne, awarded the gold to the Russians. An investigation revealed that she had been pressured to give the gold to the Russian pair regardless of how they skated; in return, the Russian judge would look favourably on the French entrants in the ice dancing competition.
Australian Steven Bradbury became the first gold medallist from the southern hemisphere when he won the 1,000 metre short-track speed skating event. in
Turin|right|upright|A close-up of the Olympic Flame during the
2006 Winter Olympics in
Turin The Italian city of
Turin hosted the
2006 Winter Olympics. It was the second time that Italy had hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
South Korean athletes won 10 medals, including 6 gold in the short-track speed skating events.
Sun-Yu Jin won three gold medals while her teammate
Hyun-Soo Ahn won three gold medals and a bronze. On winning the Super-G,
Kjetil-Andre Aamodt of Norway became the most decorated ski racer of all time with 4 gold and 8 overall medals. He is also the only ski racer to have won the same event at three Olympics, winning the Super-G in
1992,
2002, and
2006.
Claudia Pechstein of
Germany became the first speed skater to earn nine career medals. This ruling was brought to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which overturned the lower court's ruling and precluded her from competing in Vancouver. In 2003, the IOC awarded the
2010 Winter Olympics to
Vancouver, thus allowing Canada to host its second Winter Olympics. With a population of more than 2.5 million people Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area to ever host a Winter Olympic Games. Over 2,500 athletes from 82 countries participated in 86 events.
Norwegian cross-country skier
Marit Bjørgen won five medals in the six cross-country events on the women's programme. She finished the Olympics with three golds, a silver and a bronze. For the first time,
Canada won a gold medal at an Olympic Games it hosted, having failed to do so at both the
1976 Summer Olympics in
Montreal and the
1988 Winter Olympics in
Calgary. In contrast to the lack of gold medals at these previous Olympics, the Canadian team finished first overall in gold medal wins, and became the first host nation—since
Norway in 1952—to lead the gold medal count, with 14 medals. In doing so, it also broke the record for the most gold medals won by a NOC at a single Winter Olympics (the previous was 13, set by the
Soviet Union in 1976 and matched by
Norway in 2002). The Vancouver Games were notable for the poor performance of the
Russian athletes. From their first Winter Olympics in
1956 to the 2006 Games, a Soviet or Russian delegation had never been outside the top five medal-winning nations, but in 2010 they finished sixth in total medals and eleventh in gold medals.
President Dmitry Medvedev called for the resignation of top sports officials immediately after the Games. Russia's disappointing performance at Vancouver is cited as the reason behind the
enhancement of an already existing doping scheme alleged to have been in operation at major events such as the 2014 Games at Sochi. The success of Asian countries stood in stark contrast to the under-performing Russian team, with Vancouver marking a high point for medals won by Asian countries. At the Albertville Games in 1992 the Asian countries had won fifteen medals, three of which were gold. In Vancouver, the total number of medals won by athletes from Asia had increased to thirty-one, with eleven of them being gold. The rise of Asian nations in Winter Olympics sports is due in part to the growth of winter sports programmes and the interest in winter sports in nations such as Kazakhstan, South Korea, Japan and China. These results increased the chances of an Asian city hosting the
2018 Winter Olympics that would be held the following year.
Sochi, Russia, was selected as the host city for the
2014 Winter Olympics over
Salzburg, Austria, and
Pyeongchang, South Korea. This was the first time that Russia had hosted a Winter Olympics. A record 2,800 athletes from 88 countries competed in 98 events. The Olympic Village and Olympic Stadium were located on the
Black Sea coast. All of the mountain venues were away in the alpine region known as
Krasnaya Polyana. However,
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Russian national anti-doping laboratory, subsequently claimed that he had been involved in doping dozens of Russian competitors for the Games, and that he had been assisted by the Russian
Federal Security Service in opening and re-sealing bottles containing urine samples so that samples with banned substances could be replaced with "clean" urine. A subsequent
investigation commissioned by the
World Anti-Doping Agency led by
Richard McLaren concluded that a state-sponsored doping programme had operated in Russia from "at least late 2011 to 2015" across the "vast majority" of Summer and Winter Olympic sports. On 5 December 2017, the IOC announced that
Russia would compete as the
Olympic Athletes from Russia at the 2018 Winter Olympics and by the end of 2017 the
IOC Disciplinary Commission had disqualified 43 Russian athletes, stripping thirteen medals and knocking Russia from the top of the medal table, thus putting Norway in the lead. However, nine medals were later returned, meaning that Russia reclaimed first place in the overall medal table, and joint first place with Norway in terms of gold medals. On 6 July 2011,
Pyeongchang, South Korea, was selected to host the
2018 Winter Olympics over
Munich, Germany, and
Annecy, France. This was the first time that
South Korea had been selected to host a Winter Olympics and it was the second time the Olympics were held in the country overall, after the
1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. The Games took place from 9 to 25 February 2018.
Finland claimed its first ice hockey gold, having beaten the Russian Olympic Committee in the men's final on the last day of the Games. Norway was first in the overall medal standings, claiming 37 medals in total and 16 gold medals, the highest number of gold medals of any country in a single Winter Olympics. This was the tenth time Norway claimed the highest number of gold medals at the Winter Games.
Future The
2026 Winter Olympics was held in
Milan-
Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and took place from 6 to 22 February 2026. The
2034 Winter Olympics was also awarded to be hosted by the United States in
Utah; the state previously hosted the 2002 Olympics in
Salt Lake City.
Controversy , former IOC president, who was in charge of the Olympic movement for more than 20 years The process for awarding host city honours came under intense scrutiny after
Salt Lake City had been awarded the right to host the 2002 Games. Soon after the host city had been announced it was discovered that the organisers had engaged in an elaborate bribery
scheme to curry favour with IOC officials. The subsequent
United States Department of Justice investigation uncovered inconsistencies in the bids for every Olympics (both Summer and Winter) since 1988. For example, the gifts received by IOC members from the Japanese Organising Committee for Nagano's bid for the
1998 Winter Olympics were described by the investigation committee as "astronomical". Although nothing strictly illegal had been done, the IOC feared that corporate sponsors would lose faith in the integrity of the process and that the Olympic brand would be tarnished to such an extent that advertisers would begin to pull their support. The investigation resulted in the expulsion of 10 IOC members and the sanctioning of another 10. New terms and age limits were established for IOC membership, and 15 former Olympic athletes were added to the committee. Stricter rules for future bids were imposed, with ceilings imposed on the value of gifts IOC members could accept from bid cities.
Host city legacy About eight years before the Winter Olympics, the
IOC invites National Olympic Committees to submit bids to host the games. According to the IOC, the host city for the Winter Olympics is responsible for "...establishing functions and services for all aspects of the Games, such as sports planning, venues, finance, technology, accommodation, catering, media services, etc., as well as operations during the Games". Due to the cost of hosting the Games, most host cities never realise a profit on their investment. For example, the
2006 Winter Olympics in
Turin, Italy, cost $3.6 billion to host. By comparison, the
1998 Winter Olympics in
Nagano, Japan, cost $12.5 billion. The organisers of the Nagano Games claimed that the cost of extending the
bullet train service from Tokyo to Nagano was responsible for the large price tag. The Winter Olympics has the added problem of the alpine events requiring a mountain location; the men's downhill needs an 800-metre altitude difference along a suitable course. As this is a focal event that is central to the Games, the IOC has previously not agreed to it taking place a long way from the main host city, in contrast to the Summer Games, where sailing and horse sports have taken place more than away. The requirement for a mountain location also means that venues such as hockey arenas often have to be built in sparsely populated areas with little future need for a large arena and for the hotels and infrastructure needed for all Olympic visitors. Due to cost issues, fewer and fewer cities are willing to host. Both the
Torino 2006 and
Vancouver 2010 Games, which were hosted in countries where large cities are located close to suitable mountain regions, had lower costs since more venues, hotels and transport infrastructure already existed. In contrast, the
Sochi 2014 games had large costs as most installations had to be built. The IOC has tried to mitigate these concerns. Firstly, it has agreed to fund part of the host city's budget. Secondly, the qualifying host countries are limited to those that have the resources and infrastructure to successfully host an Olympic Games without negatively impacting their region or nation; this rules out a large portion of the developing world. Finally, any prospective host city is required to add a "legacy plan" to their proposal, with a view to the long-term economic and environmental impact that hosting the Olympics will have. Beginning with the
2022 Winter Games, the IOC allowed greater distances between the alpine events and other events. The
Oslo bid had to the
Kvitfjell downhill arena, while eventual host Beijing had venues 220 km away from the city as well. For the 2026 Winter Games,
Stockholm's unsuccessful bid proposed to hold the alpine event in
Åre, away by road, while the successful bid of 2026 has between
Milan and
Cortina.
Doping In 1967 the IOC began enacting drug testing protocols. They started by randomly testing athletes at the 1968 Winter Olympics. The first Winter Games athlete to test positive for a banned substance was
Alois Schloder, a
West German hockey player, but his team was still allowed to compete. During the 1970s, testing outside of competition was escalated because it was found to deter athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs. The problem with testing during this time was a lack of standardisation of the test procedures, which undermined the credibility of the tests. It was not until the late 1980s that international sporting federations began to coordinate efforts to standardise the drug-testing protocols. The IOC took the lead in the fight against steroids when it established the independent
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 1999. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin became notable for a scandal involving the emerging trend of
blood doping, the use of blood transfusions or synthetic hormones such as
Erythropoietin (EPO) to improve oxygen flow and thus reduce fatigue. The Italian police conducted a raid on the
Austrian cross-country ski team's residence during the Games where they seized blood-doping specimens and equipment. This event followed the pre-Olympics suspension of 12 cross-country skiers who tested positive for unusually high levels of
haemoglobin, which is evidence of blood doping.
Cold War The Winter Olympics were an ideological front in the
Cold War since the
Soviet Union first participated at the
1956 Winter Games. It did not take long for the Cold War combatants to discover what a powerful propaganda tool the Olympic Games could be. The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the
Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The
Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis. East Germany declined and instead sought international legitimacy separate from West Germany. In 1955, the Soviet Union recognised East Germany as a sovereign state, thereby giving more credibility to East Germany's campaign to become an independent participant. The IOC agreed provisionally to accept the
East German National Olympic Committee on condition that East and West Germans compete as one team. The situation became tense when the
Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany in 1961 to stop migration of its citizens and Western European nations began refusing visas to East German athletes. The uneasy compromise of a unified team held until the 1968 Grenoble Games when the IOC split the teams and threatened to reject host-city bids from any country that refused entry visas to East German athletes.
Boycott The Winter Games have had only one national team boycott when Taiwan decided not to participate in the 1980 Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid. Prior to the Games, the IOC agreed to allow China to compete in the Olympics for the first time since 1952. China was given permission to compete as the "People's Republic of China" (PRC) and to use the PRC flag and anthem. Until 1980 the island of Taiwan had been competing under the name "Republic of China" (ROC) and had been using the ROC flag and anthem. The IOC renamed the island "
Chinese Taipei" and demanded that it adopt a different flag and national anthem, stipulations to which Taiwan would not agree. Despite numerous appeals and court hearings, the IOC's decision stood. When the Taiwanese athletes arrived at the Olympic village with their Republic of China identification cards they were not admitted. They subsequently left the Olympics in protest, just before the opening ceremonies. ==Sports==