The 2014 Winter Olympics will begin on February 7 and end on February 23 in Sochi, Russia. Some of the events include curling, ice hockey and ice skating. To help you prepare for the Winter Olympic Games we’ve made a list of fun facts about the event.
- Charmonix, France was the home to the first Winter Olympics in 1924. Originally the Winter Olympics were held only a couple of months earlier than the Summer Olympics in a different city. It wasn’t until 1994 that the Winter and Summer Olympics started being held 2 years apart. This year marks the 22nd Winter Olympics.
- The very first Winter Olympics only had 16 nations that competed in it with 285 athletes. Today this number has grown significantly with 88 countries competing with 3,000 athletes. The first Winter Olympics only lasted for 11 days and was known as The International Winter Sports Week instead of the Winter Olympics. This year it will last for 17 days.
- America, Charles Jewtraw won the first gold medal during the Winter Olympics. The event he won the gold medal in was 500 speed skating. To date the U.S.A. has won a total of 253 gold medals since the Winter Olympics began.
- Only one athlete has ever won a medal in both the Winter and Summer Olympics during the same year. In 1998, Christa Luding-Rothenburger won a medal in the Winter Olympics for speed skating and a medal at the Summer Olympics for cycling.
- The country that has won the most medals during the Winter Olympics is Norway. Overall they have won 313 medals, 112 of those are gold. The U.S.A. comes in second place with 274 medals overall and of those 93 are gold.
- All of the Winter Olympic Games are held outdoors except for figure skating, ice hockey, curling and speed skating. Man-made snow has been used during the Winter Olympic Games in cities where there is not a sufficient amount of snow for some of these events. In 1980, Lake Placid was the first Olympic city that used man-made snow.
- There are 12 New events for the 2014 Olympics: Biathlon mixed relay, figure skating team event, luge team relay, ski half pipe, ski slope style, snowboard slope style, snowboard parallel slalom and women’s ski jump.
Did you know any of the fun facts about the Olympics? With so many countries and athletes in attendance this year, there’s sure to be many records broken. The Winter Olympic Games will air on NBC starting on February 7 at 11 a.m. eastern time.
