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Winter Olympic Games

The Winter Olympic Games are the cold-weather counterpart to the Summer Olympic Games. They feature outdoor winter sports held on ice or snow, such as skiing and ice skating.

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.

Table of contents
1 Medal sports
2 Olympic medals 1924-1998 (Top 10)
3 Past Winter Olympics
4 Future Winter Olympics
5 See also
6 External links

Medal sports

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

1956 Winter Olympic Games: Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy

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, 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, 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, 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