The Winter Olympics

History of the Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympic Games are an event under the umbrella of the International Olympic Committee and were created by the International Olympic Committee in 1925. They are held like the Summer Olympics every four years. In these games some sports are practiced both on ice and on snow and in reality, they are very few compared to those of summer. The sports with which the competition began at the beginning of the 20th century were:

  • Cross-country skiing
  • Speed skating
  • Figure Skating
  • Ice Hockey
  • Bobsleigh
  • Nordic Combination
  • Ski jumping

There are currently other sports that are very attractive, although they may look a little strange in our country because they are not very well known they are hilarious and worth investigating and are the following:

  • Luge
  • Speed skating on the short track
  • Curling
  • Acrobatic skiing
  • Bandy

However, it is necessary to go back a bit in history and understand the origin of these Games-sport that you must recognize to a man lover of the sport and passion for sharing with the athletes of the world, overcoming the effort of achieving goals on the ice and the snow. History leads us to approach General Viktor Gustaf Balck, who was a Swedish army officer and had also been part of the founding group of the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and was, therefore, a member of this organization.

General Balck had organized the first Nordic Games in Sweden in 1901, 1903 and 1905 (every three years). He then decided to continue celebrating them every four years until 1926. Because that was one of the personal friends of Pierre de Freddy, Baron de Coubertin influenced a lot to the inclusion of winter sports in the Olympic Games there at the beginning of the TWENTIETH Century were carried out competitions of figure Skating (1908).

Winter sports were beginning to take on a lot of strength, and there was an increasing interest in including them in the Summer Olympics program, a somewhat contradictory situation that put in difficulties even the organizers of the Stockholm games in 1912, but which was further aggravated by the grim appearance of the First World War.

It would then be a decade later during the International Olympic Committee Congress in 1921 that a proposal would be acceptable to include in the organization of the Paris 1924 Olympic Games, the celebration of an” International Winter Sports Week ” sponsored by the IOC that took place in Chamonix with a resounding success and enthusiasm of all participants and attendees.

The story goes that more than 200 athletes from 16 countries competed on that occasion and that only 15 women were participating in the figure skating competition and witnessing how Finland and Norway prevailed in the contests.

It would be in 1925 during a session of the IOC that the “International Winter Sports Week” would be recognized as the first edition of the Winter Olympics and that official approval would be given to continue organizing every four years only interrupted by the Second World War for eight years. It would be until 1948 that the games would resume in Saint Moritz, a Swiss commune located in the canton of Graubünden. Until 1992 the Games were held every four years in the same year of the Summer Olympic Games. However, due to the growth of the Summer Olympic Games and all the intense activity that revolves around the organization of an event such as this, the International Olympic Committee decided to alternate the schedule of the Games and broke up the winter of the summer.

So it may seem somewhat strange chronologically speaking, but the last Winter Games alongside the Summer Games were held in Albertville 1992, and the following were held in Lillehammer in 1994. From that date, the winter and Summer Games are celebrated two years apart.

Ian Fehler
Latest posts by Ian Fehler (see all)