ABSTRACT
The delay in establishing a separate Winter Olympic Games until 1924, almost 30 years after the revival of the Summer Games, reflected the exclusion of winter sports in the original conception of the Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin objected to their inclusion partly because of Scandinavian fears that to do so would have possible detrimental effects on their traditional sports festivals, such as the Nordic Games and Holmenkollen Week.1 However, as the popularity of winter sports spread, the movement to include them in the Olympic programme gathered pace. Some of the early Summer Games included figure skating (London 1908, Antwerp 1920) and ice hockey (Antwerp 1920) in their programmes. In 1924, a separate winter sports week was held at Chamonix six months before the Summer Games in Paris. Following the success of this event, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) amended its Charter in 1925 to establish the Winter Olympics, with Chamonix retrospectively designated as the first Winter Games. Until 1948, the country hosting the Summer Games also had the opportunity to stage the Winter Games. Thereafter, the selection of the host for the Winter Games was subject to a separate competition decided by a vote of IOC members, but the event was staged in the same year as the Summer Games. From 1992, further change occurred, with the Summer and Winter Games being staged alternately every 2 years in order to maximize the profile of the Olympics and its television revenue (Borja, 1992).
