Winter Olympic Games

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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.


Contents

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 Olympics: Chamonix , France
1928 Winter Olympics: St. Moritz, Switzerland
Sonja Henie, Norway, figure skating
1932 Winter Olympics: Lake Placid, USA
Sonja Henie, Norway, figure skating
1936 Winter Olympics: 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 Olympics: St. Moritz , Switzerland


1952 Winter Olympics: Oslo, Norway
Stein Eriksen, Norway, giant slalom
Dick Button, USA, figure skating
1956 Winter Olympics: Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
1960 Winter Olympics: Squaw Valley, USA
Carol Heiss, USA, figure skating
USA Men's ice hockey, gold medal
1964 Winter Olympics: Innsbruck, Austria
1968 Winter Olympics: Grenoble, France
Jean-Claude Killy, France, three alpine skiing gold medals
Peggy Fleming, USA, figure skating
1972 Winter Olympics: Sapporo, Japan
1976 Winter Olympics: Innsbruck, Austria
Franz Klammer, Austria, skiing (gold medal, downhill)
Dorothy Hamill, USA, figure skating
1980 Winter Olympics: 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 Olympics: Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
Katarina Witt, East Germany, figure skating
Torvill and Dean, U.K., ice dancing
1988 Winter Olympics: 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 Olympics: Albertville, France
Kristi Yamaguchi, USA, figure skating
1994 Winter Olympics: 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 Olympics: Nagano, Japan
Georg Hackl, Germany, luge (third consecutive gold medal)
Czech Republic, led by Dominik Hasek win men's hockey gold.
2002 Winter Olympics: 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


References

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