III.

History

The first full-scale Winter Olympic Games were staged in 1924 at Chamonix, France. Previously there had been winter events held, at random, at the Summer Games, most notably the figure skating and ice hockey competitions that were associated with the 1920 Summer Games at Antwerp, Belgium. Since then the contests have been held regularly, with the exception of 1940 and 1944, at different sites chosen by the International Olympic Committee: St Moritz, Switzerland (1928 and 1948), Lake Placid, US (1932 and 1980), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (1936), Oslo, Norway (1952), Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (1956), Squaw Valley, US (1960), Innsbruck, Austria (1964 and 1976), Grenoble, France (1968), Sapporo, Japan (1972), Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (1984), Calgary, Canada (1988), Albertville, France (1992), Lillehammer, Norway (1994), Nagano, Japan (1998), Salt Lake City, US (2002), and Turin, Italy (2006). From the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, the winter and summer games began to be alternated in even-numbered years. At the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, about 2,500 athletes from 85 countries participated. In the history of the Winter Olympics, Germany has won most medals overall, though it had teams from the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic competing alongside each other from 1956 to 1988. The most gold medals have been won by Russia, though it competed as the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1992. Norway comes third in the gold medal list and the overall medals table.