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The "International Winter Sports Week" took place in Chamonix, France. Two years later, this was retroactively given the status of the first Olympic Winter Games.

The first Winter Games was 11-day event held between Jan 25-Feb 5, 1924. Sixteen nations with 292 participants competed in 16 event. Not surprisingly, the sports were dominated by the Scandinavians.

List of Sports/Events (number of medal events)

• Bobsleigh (1)
  
• Curling (1)
  
• Ice hockey (1)
  
• Figure skating (3)
  
• Speed skating (5)
  
• Military patrol (1)
  
• Cross-country skiing (2)
  
• Nordic combined (1)
  
• Ski jumping (1)

Trivia

• Due to an error in computing the scores, American Anders Haugen was placed in fourth in ski jumping, behind Norway's Thorleif Haug. This error was discovered in 1974, and Haugen was awarded the bronze in a special ceremony.
• At these Games, for the first time the host country (France) failed to win any gold medals, finishing with three bronze medals.
• In the women’s figure skating event, Sonja Henie, an 11-year-old girl from Norway and future Olympic star, made her Olympic debut and placed last in the eight-woman field.
• The medal in Alpinism was awarded during the closing ceremony - awarded to the participants of the 1922 Mount Everest expedition.
• The sport of Military patrol was an official Olympic sport only once, in 1924. It appeared several more times on the Olympic program but inly as a demonstration event.

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Related Pages

• More Winter Olympics Host Countries
• Winter Olympics main page.
• History of the Winter Olympics
• Sport in France