Revolution of Sports in Regards to Winter Games

The winter Olympic Games are major international sports held on ice and snow after every four years. They were first held in France in 1924. Originally, there were four winter Olympics sports which are bobsleigh, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, curling, cross-country skiing, military patrol, figure skating, Nordic combined and speed skating. Between 1924 and 1936 the games were held every four years but were disrupted by the World War II in 1940 and 1944. The games resumed in 1948.

Over the years the winter games have evolved with some sports and discipline being added. These sports include the Luge, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, alpine skiing and skeleton. Sports such as the military patrol have been discontinued while others games have been discontinued and reintroduced later for instance curling. The games are held in February at the peak of the southern hemisphere summer. The cold weather dependent games have been held in the United States four times. Other countries which have hosted the games include France, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Germany, Russia, Japan and Italy. The 2018 Olympics games were held in Pyeongchang South Korea.

According to the Olympic charter, winter sports are limited to those sports that are practiced on the snow and ice (Essex, Stephen J., and J. de Groot 2016). The addition of new sports, especially since 1992, has broadened the winter Olympics appeal beyond North America and Europe although countries such as Norway continue to dominate the winter Olympics games. In the first winter Olympic Games in 1924 in France, Norwegian athletes and Finland won 28 more medals than all of the other athletes combined. In the recently Norway, German and Canada holds the first, second and third position with 30, 23 and 20 medals respectively. The host, South Korea scooped 8 medals taking number nine overall positions. In 1928, speed skating event was canceled because of the warm weather condition. In the same year, Norway's Sonja Henie made history by winning figure skating at the age of 15 years. The 1960 United States winter Olympics were the first to field female speed skating events and the first to tabulate results using a computer courtesy of IBM.

The 1964 winter Olympics in the Austrian city of Innsbruck had some challenges. While the sports resort was traditionally a winter sports resort it the warm weather caused the lack of snow which had to be transported by the Austrian army. Luge sport was contest first in this Olympic Games, although they resulted in the death of a competitor during the pre-Olympic training run. However, Soviet's Lidia Skoblikova made history when she swept all four-speed skating events.

The most recent 2018 winter Olympics also popularly known as Pyeongchang 2018 are being as from 9th to 25th February (Sports 2018). It is the first time South Korea is hosting the winter games and the second time it is hosting Olympics games after the 1988 summer Olympics which were held in 1988. It is the sixth time the games are held in East Asia ahead of Tokyo in 2020 and Beijing 2022. The game features 102 events with 2914 athletes including debuts from countries such as Nigeria. There were security concerns due to the tension between South Korea and North Korea. The two countries agreed to match together during the opening ceremony as a united Korea.