Brief History of the Winter Olympic Games

Dr. Gregory Lowe PT, DPT, cert. MDT, CSCS
Feb 6
3 min read

This is a major weekend for sports— the Winter Olympics officially start TODAY with the opening ceremony happening in Milan! Plus, it’s Superbowl Sunday (but as Bills fans…we don’t really want to talk about that 🙃…so we’ll focus on the Olympics instead!)

In honor of celebrating 100+ years of the Winter Olympics, we wanted to share a brief history of the Winter Games as you look forward to this year’s global competition!

The Winter Olympic Games officially kicked off in 1924 in Chamonix, France. They started with only 16 countries at the time, and just a few ice/snow sports– this ignited the popularization of winter sports and ultimately helped Chamonix become an international tourist destination.

St. Moritz, Switzerland hosted the following Winter Games in 1928, and later became the first country to host for a second time when they did so in 1948. The 1948 Games were nicknamed “The Games of Renewal,” because they revived the Winter Olympics after a 12-year hiatus during World War II.

At the 1932 Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY, Olympic medalists stood on podiums for the first time! Lake Placid hosted again 48 years later in 1980.

In 1936, the highest peak in the German Alps– Zugspitze –became the backdrop of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Games. This became a controversial event for the Olympics and is described as casting a “dark shadow” in the history of the Games. This was unfortunately due to the Nazi regime using that event as a propaganda tool to cover up their horrible antisemitic policies and militarism at the time.

On a brighter note, here are some other “firsts” that occurred with the Winter Olympic Games:

Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956– The Olympic Oath was sworn in by a woman for the first time; her name was Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo.

Grenoble 1968– This became the first Olympic Games to be televised live in color.

Sapporo 1972– The first Winter Games that were hosted in Asia.

Lillehammer 1994– This was the first time the Winter Games were held in a different year than the summer Olympic Games.

Turin 2006– The first time where live coverage of the Games became available on mobile phones.

PyeongChang 2018– A memorable occasion where the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea actually marched together at the Opening Ceremony and formed a joint hockey team.

Beijing 2022– When these games occurred, Beijing became the first ever city to host both the summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games (they had previously hosted the Summer Games in 2008).

Hopefully this brief history lesson helps initiate some excitement for this year’s edition of the Winter Olympics!

Competition technically started earlier this week with some mixed doubles curling, women’s ice hockey, and snowboard qualifications! It becomes ‘official’ after today’s Opening Ceremony!

There’s also a new addition to the Winter Games this year–Ski Mountaineering! This link gives insight to the debut event.

The first Olympic medals of these Games will be awarded on Saturday February 7th, so get your popcorn ready!

The Milan Cortina Games are happening between February 6th–22nd (16 days total). You can find the full schedule here.

All events can be streamed and replayed on Peacock, and NBC will air primetime coverage as well as major events.

We are SO READY to gain some motivation after watching these exciting winter events featuring the BEST athletes in the world!! Let us know your favorite winter sports to watch!

LET'S GO!!!

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