On february 7th this amazing spectacle is going to start in Sochi (Russia).
I know that winter sports are not very popular in our country but this time we have a good chance to get a medal in figure skating with Javier Fernandez who has just won the European championship.
Although we dont have too much tradition in winter sports I can assure you that it is very interesting to watch these sports
For example, this year in Alpine skiing there are a lot of skiers who have chances of winning in every race.
To know more about the winter olimpics you can read in the following parragraphs about the history, and the diferents types of events that you could find in the programme.
If you are interested you can also visit the official web site : Sochi 2014
Winter olimpics
The Winter Olympic Games is a major international sporting
event that occurs once every four years. The first celebration of the Winter
Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The original sports were alpine
and cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski
jumping and speed skating.
The Games were held every four years from 1924 until
1936, after which they were interrupted by World War II. The Olympics resumed
in 1948 and were celebrated every four years.
The Winter and Summer Olympic
Games were held in the same years until 1992, after a 1986 decision by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to place the Summer and Winter Games on
separate four-year cycles in alternating even-numbered years. Because of the
change, the next Winter Olympics after 1992 were in 1994.
The Winter Games have evolved since their inception. Sports
have been added and some of them, such as luge, short track speed skating and
freestyle skiing, have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic programme.
Others, such asspeed skiing, bandy and skijoring, were demonstration sports but
never incorporated as Olympic sports.
The Winter Olympics have been hosted on three continents,
but never in a country in the southern hemisphere. The United States has hosted
the Games four times; France has been the host three times; Austria, Canada,
Japan, Italy, Norway and Switzerland have hosted the Games twice. In 2014 Sochi
will be the first Russian city to host the Winter Olympics. The IOC has
selected Pyeongchang, South Korea, to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
History: Early years
The first international multi-sport event for winter sports
was the Nordic Games held in Sweden in 1901. Originally organized by General Viktor Gustaf Balck,
the Nordic Games were held again in 1903 and 1905 and then every fourth year
thereafter until 1926. Balck was a charter member of the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) and a close friend of Olympic Games founder Pierre de
Coubertin. He attempted to have winter sports, specifically figure skating,
added to the Olympic programme but was unsuccessful until the1908 Summer
Olympics in London, United Kingdom. Four figure skating events were contested
and at which Ulrich Salchow (10-time world champion) and Madge Syers won the
individual titles.
General Viktor Gustaf Balck
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Three years later Italian count Eugenio Brunetta d'Usseaux
proposed that the IOC stage a week of winter sports included as part of the
1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. The organisers opposed this idea
because they desired to protect the integrity of the Nordic Games and were
concerned about a lack of facilities for winter sports. The idea was
resurrected for the 1916 Games, which were to be held in Berlin, Germany. A
winter sports week with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and Nordic
skiing was planned, but the 1916 Olympics was cancelled after the outbreak of
World War I.
The first Olympics after the war were held in Antwerp,
Belgium and featured figure skating and ice hockey tournament. Germany,
Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned from competing in the Games.
At the IOC Congress held the following year it was decided that the host nation
of the 1924 Summer Olympics, France, would host a separate "International
Winter Sports Week" under the patronage of the IOC. Chamonix was chosen to
host this "week" (actually 11 days) of events. The Games proved to be
a success when more than 250 athletes from 16 nations competed in 16 events.
Athletes from Finland and Norway won 28 medals, more than the rest of the
participating nations combined. Germany remained banned until 1925, and instead
hosted a series of games calledDeutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the Winter
edition of 1922 (which predated the first Winter Olympics). In 1925 the IOC
decided to create a separate Olympic Winter Games and the 1924 Games in
Chamonix was retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympics.
St. Moritz, Switzerland, was appointed by the IOC to host
the second Olympic Winter Games in 1928.[9] Fluctuating weather conditions
challenged the hosts. The opening ceremony was held in a blizzard while warm
weather conditions plagued sporting events throughout the rest of the Games.
Because of the weather the 10,000 metre speed-skating event had to be abandoned
and officially cancelled. The weather was not the only note-worthy aspect of
the 1928 Games; Sonja Henie of Norway made history when she won the figure
skating competition at the age of 15. She became the youngest Olympic champion
in history, a distinction she would hold for 74 years.
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The next Winter Olympics was the first to be hosted outside
of Europe. Seventeen nations and 252 athletes participated. This was less than
in 1928 as the journey to Lake Placid, United States, was a long and expensive
one for most competitors who had little money in the midst of the Great
Depression. The athletes competed in fourteen events in four sports. Virtually
no snow fell for two months before the Games, and it was not until mid-January
that there was enough snow to hold all the events. Sonja Henie defended her
Olympic title and Eddie Eagan, who had been an Olympic champion in boxing in
1920, won the gold in the men's bobsleigh event to become the first, and so far
only, Olympian to have won gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
The German towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen joined to
organise the 1936 edition of the Winter Games, held on 6–16 February. This
would be the last time the Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same
country in the same year. Alpine skiing made its Olympic debut, but skiing
teachers were barred from entering because they were considered to be
professionals. Because of this decision the Swiss and Austrian skiers refused
to compete at the Games.
World War II interrupted the celebrations of the Winter
Olympics. The 1940 Games had been awarded to Sapporo, Japan, but the decision
was rescinded in 1938 because of the Japanese invasion of China. The Games were
moved to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, but the German invasion of Poland in
1939 forced the complete cancellation of the 1940 Games. Due to the ongoing war
the 1944 Games, originally scheduled for Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, were
cancelled.
1948 to 1960
St. Moritz was selected to host the first post-war Games in
1948. Switzerland's neutrality had protected the town during World War II and
most of the venues were in place from the 1928 Games, which made St. Moritz a
logical choice to become the first city to host a Winter Olympics twice.
Twenty-eight countries competed in Switzerland, but athletes from Germany and
Japan were not invited. Controversy erupted when two hockey teams from the
United States arrived, both claiming to be the legitimate U.S. Olympic hockey
representative.
The Olympic Flame for the 1952 Games in Oslo, was lit in the
fireplace by skiing pioneer Sondre Nordheim and the torch relay was conducted
by 94 participants entirely on skis. Bandy, a popular sport in the Nordic
countries, was featured as a demonstration sport.
After not being able to host the Games in 1944, Cortina
d'Ampezzo was selected to organise the1956 Winter Olympics. At the opening
ceremonies the final torch bearer, Guido Caroli, entered theOlympic Stadium on
ice skates. As he skated around the stadium his skate caught on a cable and he
fell, nearly extinguishing the flame. He was able to recover and light the
cauldron. These were the first Winter Games to be televised, though no
television rights would be sold until the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. The
Cortina Games were used to test the feasibility of televising large sporting
events. The Soviet Union made its Olympic debut and had an immediate impact,
winning more medals than any other nation.
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The IOC awarded the 1960 Olympics to Squaw Valley, United
States. Since the village was underdeveloped there was a rush to construct
infrastructure and sports facilities like an ice arena, speed-skating track,
and a ski-jump hill. The opening and closing ceremonies were produced by Walt
Disney. The Squaw Valley Olympics had a number of notable firsts: it was the
first Olympics to have a dedicated athletes' village; it was the first to use a
computer (courtesy of IBM) to tabulate results; and the first to feature female
speed skating events. The bobsleigh events were absent for the only time
because the organising committee found it too expensive to build the bobsleigh
run.
1964 to 1980
Lidia Skoblikova
Held in the French town of Grenoble, the 1968 Winter
Olympics were the first Olympic Games to be broadcast in colour. There were 37
nations and 1,158 athletes competing in 35 events. Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy
became only the second person to win all the men's alpine skiing events. The
organising committee sold television rights for $2 million, which was more than
double the price of the broadcast rights for the Innsbruck Games. Venues were
spread over long distances requiring three athletes' villages. The organisers
claimed this was required to accommodate technological advances. Critics
disputed this, alleging that the layout was necessary to provide the best
possible venues for television broadcasts at the expense of the athletes.
The 1972 Winter Games, held in Sapporo, Japan, were the
first to be hosted outside North America or Europe. The issue of
professionalism became contentious during the Sapporo Games. Three days before
the Games IOC president Avery Brundagethreatened to bar a number of alpine
skiers from competing because they participated in a ski camp at Mammoth
Mountain in the United States. Brundage reasoned that the skiers had
financially benefited from their status as athletes and were therefore no
longer amateurs. Eventually only Austrian Karl Schranz, who earned more than
all the other skiers, was not allowed to compete. Canada did not send teams to
the 1972 or 1976 ice hockey tournaments in protest of their inability to use
players from professional leagues. Francisco Fernández Ochoa became the first Spaniard to win a Winter Olympic gold medal; he triumphed in
thes lalom.
The 1976 Winter Olympics had been awarded in 1970 to Denver,
United States, but in November 1972 the voters of the state of Colorado voted
against public funding of the games by a 3 to 2 margin. Innsbruck, which had
maintained most of the infrastructure from the 1964 Games, was chosen in
February 1973 to replace Denver. Two Olympic flames were lit because it was the
second time the Austrian town had hosted the Games. The 1976 Games featured the
first combination bobsleigh and luge track, in neighbouring Igls. The Soviet
Union won its fourth consecutive ice hockey gold medal.
In 1980 the Olympics returned to Lake Placid, which had
hosted the 1932 Games. The first boycott of a Winter Olympics occurred in 1980
when Taiwan refused to participate after an edict by the IOC mandated that they
change their name and national anthem. The IOC was attempting to accommodate
China, who wished to compete using the same name and anthem that had been used
by Taiwan. Liechtenstein, became the smallest
nation to produce an Olympic gold medallist. In the "Miracle on Ice"
the American hockey team beat the favoured Soviets and went on to win the gold
medal.
1984 to 1998
Sapporo, Japan and Gothenburg, Sweden, were front-runners to
host the 1984 Winter Olympics. It was therefore a surprise when Sarajevo,
Yugoslavia, was selected as host. The Games were well-organised and displayed
no indication of the war that would engulf the country eight years later. A
total of 49 nations and 1,272 athletes participated in 39 events. Host nation
Yugoslavia won its first Olympic medal when alpine skier Jure Franko won a
silver in the giant slalom. Another sporting highlight was the free dance
performance of British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. Their
performance to Ravel's Boléroearned the pair the gold medal after achieving
unanimous perfect scores for artistic impression.
In 1988, the Canadian city of Calgary hosted the first
Winter Olympics to span 16 days. New events were added in ski-jumping and speed
skating; while future Olympic sports curling, short track speed skating and
freestyle skiingmade their appearance as demonstration sports. For the first
time the speed skating events were held indoors, on the Olympic Oval. Dutch
skater.Alberto Tomba, an Italian skier, made his Olympic debut by
winning both the giant slalom and slalom. East German Christa Rothenburger won
the women's 1,000 metre speed skating event. Seven months later she would earn
a silver in track cycling at the Summer Games in Seoul, to become the only
athlete to win medals in both a Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year.
The 1992 Games were the last to be held in the same year as
the Summer Games. They were hosted in the French Savoie region in the city of
Albertville, though only 18 events were held in the city. The rest of the
events were spread out over the Savoie. Political changes of the time were
reflected in the Olympic teams appearing in France: this was the first Games to
be held after the fall of Communism and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and
Germany competed as a single nation for the first time since the 1964 Games;
formerYugoslavian republics Croatia and Slovenia made their debuts as
independent nations; most of the former Soviet republics still competed as a
single team known as the Unified Team, but the Baltic States made independent
appearances for the first time since before World War II. At 16 years old,
Finnish ski jumper Toni Nieminen made history by becoming the youngest male
Winter Olympic champion.
Alberto Tomba:
Alberto Tomba:
In 1986 the IOC had voted to separate the Summer and Winter
Games and place them in alternating even-numbered years. This change became
effective for the 1994 Games, held in Lillehammer, Norway, which became the
first Winter Olympics to be held separate from the Summer Games. After the
division of Czechoslovakia in 1993 the Czech Republic and Slovakia made their
Olympic debuts. The women's figure skating competition garnered media attention
when American skater Nancy Kerrigan was injured on 6 January 1994, in an
assault planned by the ex-husband of opponent Tonya Harding. Both skaters
competed in the Games, but the gold medal was won by Oksana Baiul. The men's ice
hockey tournament was opened to professionals for the first time. Canada and
the United States, with their many NHL players, were favoured to win the
tournament.
Here you will see how dangerous it could be the alpine skiing.This crash happened in downhill and it happened to the best skier in the world in that moment Herman Maier. Fortunately he could recovered very fast and few days after the accident he got a gold medal.
2002 to present
The Italian city of Turin hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics.
It was the second time that Italy had hosted the Winter Olympic Games.South
Korean athletes won 10 medals, including 6 gold in the short-track speed
skating events. Sun-Yu Jin won three gold medals while her teammate Hyun-Soo
Ahn won three gold medals and a bronze. In the women's Cross-Country team
pursuit Canadian Sara Renner broke one of her poles and, when he saw her
dilemma, Norwegian coach Bjørnar Håkensmoen decided to lend her a pole. In so
doing she was able to help her team win a silver medal in the event at the
expense of the Norwegian team, who finished fourth. Claudia Pechstein of
Germany became the first speed skater to earn nine career medals. In February
2009 Pechstein tested positive for "blood manipulation" and received
a two-year suspension, which she appealed. The Court of Arbitration for Sport
upheld her suspension but a Swiss court ruled that she could compete for a spot
on the 2010 German Olympic team. This ruling was brought to the Swiss Federal
Tribunal, which overturned the lower court's ruling and precluded her from competing
in Vancouver.
In 2003 the IOC awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics to
Vancouver, thus allowing Canada to host its second Winter Olympics. With a
population of more than 2.5 million people Vancouver is the largest
metropolitan area to ever host a Winter Olympic Games. Over 80 countries and
2,500 athletes participated in 86 events. The death of Georgian luger Nodar
Kumaritashvili in a training run on the day of the opening ceremonies cast a
pall over the Games. His death forced officials at the Whistler Sliding Centre
to change the track to make it safer. The Vancouver Games were notable for the poor performance of the Russian
athletes. From their first Winter Olympics in 1956 to the 2006 games, a Soviet
or Russian delegation had never been outside the top five medal-winning
nations.
Sochi, Russia, was selected as the host city of the 2014
Winter Olympics over Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. This will
be the first time that Russia will host a Winter Olympics. The Olympic Village
and Olympic Stadium will be located on the Black Sea coast. All of the mountain
venues will be 50 kilometres away in the alpine region known as Krasnaya
Polyana.
On 6 July 2011, the IOC selected the city of Pyeongchang, South Korea to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
On 6 July 2011, the IOC selected the city of Pyeongchang, South Korea to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
