Winter Olympics
November 3, 2011 - Posted in Sports
In the year 1924 first celebration of the Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France. This sporting event occur every 4 years. In this genre the original sports at the beginning were alpine and cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey. From 1924 to 1936 these games were held every 4 years until they were interrupted by World War II and resumed in 1948 and celebrated in the same year of Summer Olympic Games. In 1992 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to place both games on separate 4 years cycles.
Winter Olympic Games evolved from their beginning. Some sports have been added in this game and some of them are permanently added in the Olympic program. The Winter Olympics have been hosted on three continents, The United States has hosted the Games four times; France has been the host three times; Austria, Canada, Italy, Japan, Norway and Switzerland have hosted the Games twice. In 2014 Russia’s Sochi will be the first Russian city to host this event and South Korea’s Pyeongchang has been selected by IOC to host this event in 2018.
The Winter Olympic Sports have 3 categories 1) ice sports, (2) alpine, skiing and snowboarding events, and 3) Nordic events. In ice sports we have Bobsled,Luge,Skeleton,Ice Hockey,Figure Skating (including Ice Dancing),Skating, Short, Curling. Second category consists of games like Alpine Skiing, Freestyle Skiing (Aerials, Moguls and Ski Cross),Snowboarding (Parallel Giant Slalom, Half pipe and Snowboard Cross) and Nordic events have games like, Biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting),Cross-Country Skiing,Ski,Jumping,Nordic Combined (ski jumping and cross country skiing). At the beginning Winter Olympics had 15 sports but in 2010 Winter Olympics 86 individual events took place.
Originally organized by General Viktor Gustaf Balck Nordic games was the first international multi-sport event for winter sports held in Sweden in 1901 until 1926. World War II interrupted the Winter Olympics celebration from Japan the game moved to Garmisch-Partenkirchen but German invasion of Poland forced cancelation of 1940 games. But now Winter Olympic Games is one of the biggest sporting events in this planet and many people around the world enjoy watching it.