71 Fun Facts About Winter Sports

The first Winter Olympics were held in 1924 in which French resort?

Chamonix staged it as an 'International Winter Sports Week', and only afterwards did the IOC decide that the event had been the first Winter Olympics.

Until 1992, the Winter Olympics shared a year with which event?

The Summer Games and the winter edition had shared a year ever since 1924, until the IOC voted in 1986 to stagger them, so the next Winter Olympics came round after two years instead of four.

Which US state hosted the Winter Olympics in both 1932 and 1980, the year of the 'Miracle on Ice'?

New York's village of Lake Placid staged both: the first bid was driven by Godfrey Dewey, son of the man behind the Dewey Decimal System, and Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt opened those Games.

Which Japanese city hosted the first Winter Olympics held in Asia, in 1972?

Sapporo had first been chosen for the 1940 Winter Games, only to hand them back once Japan was at war in China, so the city waited more than thirty years for its turn.

Which US city was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics but gave them back after voters refused to fund them?

Denver had won the vote in 1970, but Coloradans, worried about the cost and the damage to their mountains, voted in 1972 to cut off public money, and Innsbruck took the Games for a second time.

Innsbruck 1964 was so short of snow that which organisation was called in to haul it to the venues?

The Austrian army hauled in thousands of cubic metres of snow after a warm föhn wind melted the ski courses just before the Games.

Which Hollywood producer was put in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 1960 Winter Olympics?

Walt Disney chaired the pageantry committee and staged an opening with thousands of performers and 2,000 birds set free, though a blizzard held everything up for an hour.

Eddie Eagan, one of two athletes with Summer and Winter golds, won his 1920 light-heavyweight title in which sport?

Boxing brought him gold at Antwerp, and twelve years later he climbed into a four-man bobsleigh at Lake Placid and won again; the other man, Gillis Grafström, won all of his golds in figure skating.

Which city won the right to host the 1984 Winter Olympics, beating bids from Japan and Sweden?

Sarajevo won by just three votes: Gothenburg's plan scattered its venues far and wide, and Japan's candidate had already hosted a few years before.

Which film tells the story of the British ski jumper who finished last at Calgary 1988?

Eddie the Eagle was the nickname of Michael Edwards, a plasterer who jumped in thick glasses that misted up in mid-air and learned he had made the team while lodging in a Finnish mental hospital.

What did Olympic officials do after a British ski jumper came last at Calgary 1988?

Raised entry standards: soon a jumper had to rank among the world's top 50 or so to reach the Games, a rule still nicknamed after him, and he never qualified again.

What happened to Jamaica's four-man bobsleigh on its third run at Calgary 1988?

It crashed and did not finish: the sled overturned coming out of a big curve, the four men climbed out unhurt and walked to the finish line beside it, and Hollywood later turned the story into Cool Runnings.

Which 15-year-old beat Michelle Kwan to figure skating gold at Nagano 1998?

Tara Lipinski packed seven triple jumps into her free skate, among them her trademark triple loop-triple loop combination, to edge Kwan, then turned professional soon afterwards.

What happened to Ross Rebagliati after he won snowboarding's first Olympic gold in 1998?

Briefly stripped of it over cannabis: he tested positive for marijuana, blamed second-hand smoke, and within days the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that he could keep the gold.

Which snowboarder won Olympic halfpipe gold in 2006, 2010 and 2018?

Shaun White finished fourth in 2014, then won the title back in 2018 by landing back-to-back 1440s for the first time in his life on the final run.

Which figure skater won three straight Olympic titles from 1928 and then became a Hollywood film star?

Sonja Henie first skated at the Olympics aged 11 and finished last of eight, then won the next three Games and went on to make ten Hollywood feature films.

Torvill and Dean's gold-medal ice dance at the 1984 Winter Olympics was skated to which piece of music?

Boléro ran 18 seconds over the time limit even when cut down, so they opened on their knees: the clock started only when a skate blade touched the ice.

Figure skating was the first winter sport at any Olympics, debuting at which Summer Games?

1908 London held its skating events in late October, months after the main July events, and the men's winner was Ulrich Salchow, whose name now belongs to a jump.

Figure skating replaced its 6.0 scoring with a new judging system after a scandal at which Games?

Salt Lake City 2002 ended with two pairs sharing gold, and skating then scrapped a century of 6.0 marks for a system in which points add up element by element.

Tonya Harding was the first American woman to land which jump in international competition, in 1991?

The triple Axel is the only jump with a forward take-off, which adds an extra half turn, and Japan's Midori Ito was the only woman to land one before Harding.

Which speed skater won all five men's events at the 1980 Winter Olympics?

Eric Heiden set a world record in the last of the five, the 10,000 metres, then switched to cycling and became the American professional road race champion in 1985.

Which speed skater won the women's 500 metres at three straight Winter Olympics?

Bonnie Blair had finished eighth in the race on her 1984 debut, then won it three times in a row, the first of them in a world-record 39.10 seconds.

Short-track star Apolo Ohno won eight Olympic medals and which TV dance competition in 2007?

Dancing with the Stars was a mid-career detour: he won the 2007 season, then went back to the ice and took three more medals at the 2010 Games.

Which Dutch skater won the Olympic 5000 metres at three straight Games from 2010 to 2018?

Sven Kramer also crossed the line first in the 2010 10,000 metres but was disqualified, because his coach had shouted him into the wrong lane.

The Dutch Elfstedentocht is a skating race linking the eleven cities of which province?

Friesland can hold it only when natural ice along the whole route is thick enough, which happened just 15 times between 1909 and 1997.

Which coach led the US to the 1980 'Miracle on Ice'?

Herb Brooks had been the last player cut from the 1960 US team that won gold, and in 1980 he missed out again, because coaches are not given medals.

Which ABC broadcaster asked 'Do you believe in miracles?' as the 1980 US hockey game ended?

Al Michaels made the call as the US won 4-3, yet that was not the final: the Americans still had to beat Finland two days later to win gold.

Which ice hockey trophy, first awarded in 1893, has its winners' names engraved on silver bands?

The Stanley Cup runs out of room every 13 years, so its oldest band of names is removed and retired to the Hockey Hall of Fame while a blank one is added at the bottom.

Curling stones are made of what?

Granite dense enough for the job comes from just two places, a quarry in Wales and the tiny island of Ailsa Craig, where one firm holds the sole right to harvest it.

The first written record of a curling contest, from 1541, comes from an abbey in which country?

Stones dated 1511 and 1551 were found when a pond in Dunblane was drained.

Biathlon combines cross-country skiing with what?

Rifle shooting punishes every miss: depending on the event, each missed target means skiing a 150-metre penalty loop or having extra time added.

Which cross-country skier's record as most decorated male Winter Olympian fell to a biathlete in 2014?

Bjørn Dæhlie had held the mark with 12 cross-country medals since 1998; Ole Einar Bjørndalen tied him by winning sprint gold, then passed him later at the same Games in the mixed relay.

Which cross-country skier retired in 2018 with a record 15 Winter Olympic medals?

Marit Bjørgen won five of the 15 at her last Games, aged 37, and signed off with a solo win in the 30 kilometres, the final event of the 2018 Olympics.

Ski jumpers are scored on distance relative to which target line on the hill?

The K-point is worth 60 points on Olympic hills, and distance is only part of it: five judges mark style out of 20 each, so a shorter, cleaner jump can win.

What does the best jumper in a Nordic combined event earn for the cross-country race that follows?

A head start is the prize: under the Gundersen method, named after the Norwegian who devised it, jump points become seconds, so the first skier across the line wins.

Which skier swept all three men's alpine events at his home Olympics in 1968?

Jean-Claude Killy got his third gold only after Austria's Karl Schranz, given a rerun in thick fog, beat his slalom time and was then disqualified for a gate missed first time round.

Which American skier won a World Cup downhill at 41 after a knee replacement?

Lindsey Vonn had retired in 2019 because of her knees; the win made her the oldest World Cup race winner ever, a mark Didier Cuche had set at 37.

Which Austrian skier fell spectacularly in the 1998 Olympic downhill, then won two golds days later?

Hermann Maier, a former bricklayer who was 23 before he raced a World Cup event, walked away from the fall, and the man they call the Herminator was an Olympic champion within days.

Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup wins stood from 1989 until it was broken by whom in 2023?

His mark remains unbroken among men.

Which Olympic sliding sport is ridden face-down and head-first?

Skeleton could be raced only when the Games visited the one resort with a suitable track, in 1928 and 1948, and it did not return for good until 2002.

Bobsleigh was invented in the late 1800s by wealthy British tourists at which Swiss resort?

The first club formed in 1897 and a purpose-built track opened outside the town in 1902.

Which new women's bobsleigh event was introduced at the 2022 Winter Olympics?

Monobob's first gold went to Kaillie Humphries, a double Olympic champion who had switched countries and become an American citizen only two months earlier.

The Iditarod sled-dog race, first run in 1973, travels from Anchorage to which town?

Nome is close to 1,000 miles from the start, and the trail to it began as a gold rush supply route, worked in winter by dog teams.

How did Libby Riddles win the 1985 Iditarod?

Libby Riddles mushed into a blizzard while the other leaders waited it out at a village checkpoint, and 18 days after the start she became the first woman to win the race.

A Georgian luger died in training on the day of the opening ceremony at which Winter Olympics?

Vancouver 2010 opened with a moment of silence for Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, and his Georgian team-mates marched in wearing black armbands.

Which country's teams first won both men's and women's ice hockey gold at the same Games?

Canada did it in 2002, beating the host United States in both finals, and the men's gold was the country's first in fifty years.

Which figure skater won the 2010 Olympic title and never finished off the podium in her career?

Yuna Kim set world records in both programmes in 2010, and eight years later she was chosen to light the Olympic cauldron when the Games came to her home country.

Which group did the IOC bar as professionals from alpine skiing's Olympic debut in 1936?

Ski instructors were paid to ski, so the IOC shut them out, and among the victims was Austria's Toni Seelos, the reigning world champion in the combined.

Which country topped the medal table at its very first Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956?

The Soviet Union won seven golds on its Winter Games debut, one of them in ice hockey, where it upset Canada and went on to win seven of its nine Olympic tournaments.

How does a skeleton racer steer the sled during a run?

By shifting the body: the rules allow no steering or braking mechanism on a skeleton sled, so small movements of the rider do all the work.

Why did ski jumper Anders Haugen receive his 1924 Olympic bronze fifty years late?

A scoring error was found by a sports historian in 1974, and Haugen, by then 85, was handed the medal in Oslo by the daughter of the man who had been given it.

Which tiny nation has won Winter Olympic medals but never a Summer one?

Liechtenstein won all ten in alpine skiing, and seven of them went to one family: Hanni Wenzel, her brother Andreas and her daughter Tina Weirather.

Why has Germany not competed at every Winter Olympics?

Postwar bans kept Germany out of the Winter Games of 1924 and 1948, after each world war, while less likely names such as Hungary and Poland have never skipped one.

After war cancelled the 1940 and 1944 Winter Olympics, which country hosted their return in 1948?

Switzerland had been untouched by the fighting, so the venues it built for the 1928 Games were still standing, and it could get ready faster than any rival.

Every Winter Olympics host country has been located in which hemisphere?

Northern nations have staged every one, thirteen countries on three continents, and the Games are held in February, when it is midsummer south of the equator.

Which American figure skater was attacked with a baton weeks before the 1994 Olympics, yet won silver there?

Nancy Kerrigan was struck above the knee by a man hired in a plot hatched around her rival Tonya Harding, then lost the gold to Oksana Baiul by the narrowest of margins.

Which city became the first to host both the Summer and the Winter Olympics?

Beijing reused its 2008 venues in 2022: the Water Cube, built for the swimming, had ice laid over the pool and became the curling rink.

Under what three-letter designation did Russian athletes compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics?

ROC stood for Russian Olympic Committee: doping sanctions had banned the country's name, flag and anthem, so its winners heard a Tchaikovsky piano concerto instead.

Which Winter Olympic host city staged the most expensive Games in history, at a reported $51 billion?

Sochi was a Black Sea summer resort with no winter sports facilities, so every venue and a whole ski resort had to be built, and the bill passed that of any Summer Games too.

In 2014, Russian agents swapped athletes' dirty urine samples through what?

Through a hole in the wall of the testing lab, known as the mouse hole: security service agents passed the bottles out, and investigators later found scratches on caps meant to be tamper-proof.

Which future presidential nominee was hired in 1999 to rescue a Winter Olympics hit by a bribery scandal?

Mitt Romney left his investment firm, Bain Capital, to take over after gifts to IOC members had forced the organisers out, and the rescue helped elect him governor of Massachusetts months after the Games.

Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury won Olympic short-track gold from last place when what happened?

All the other finalists crashed in a heap on the last turn, and his luck had begun earlier: he got through his quarter-final on a rival's disqualification and his semi-final when others collided.

Which Canadian figure skaters got a second set of Olympic golds after a judging scandal?

Jamie Salé and David Pelletier skated their Love Story programme flawlessly yet placed second; days later a judge said she had been pressured to favour the Russians, and the Canadians got golds of their own.

A judge from which country admitted being pressured over her vote in the Olympic pairs skating scandal?

France's Marie-Reine Le Gougne said her own federation had leaned on her to back the Russians, reportedly in return for help for a French couple in the ice dance, and she was banned for three years.

Whose overtime 'golden goal' won the hosts the 2010 Olympic men's ice hockey final?

Sidney Crosby scored seven minutes into overtime, after the Americans had tied the final with under 30 seconds left, and it was the hosts' 14th gold, then a record for one Winter Games.

At PyeongChang 2018, North and South Korea fielded a unified women's team in which sport?

Ice hockey got the joint team only weeks before the Games, when twelve North Koreans were added to the South's squad, and it lost every match.

Snowboarder Ester Ledecká stunned the 2018 Olympics by also winning gold on skis, in which alpine event?

Super-G gold came by one hundredth of a second, and Ester Ledecká stood staring at the clock at the finish, sure that someone else's time was being shown by mistake.

Which sport made its Winter Olympic debut at Milan-Cortina 2026?

Ski mountaineering racers go uphill on skis fitted with grip skins, climb a stretch on foot with the skis on their backs, then strip the skins and race back down.

Tina and Milo, the 2026 Winter Games mascots, are which animals that turn white in winter?

Stoats, chosen from schoolchildren's drawings in a public vote: Tina is short for Cortina and Milo for Milano, and Milo, the Paralympic mascot, was born without a paw and walks with the help of his tail.

Which freestyle skiing event, the first to award Olympic medals, scores turns above both jumps and speed?

Moguls looks like a race down a slope of bumps, yet speed earns just 20 percent of the score, with 60 for turns and 20 for the two jumps. Dual moguls, a head-to-head version, joined the Olympics in 2026.

Why was Ryoyu Kobayashi's 291-metre ski flight never ratified as a world record?

It came outside competition, on a temporary hill built in Iceland just for the attempt. He stayed in the air for about ten seconds and landed far past the longest competition jump of the time, 253.5 metres.