Origins of the Winter Olympic Games

Fifty years after Cortina d'Ampezzo played host to the 1956 Winter Games, the Olympics have returned to Italy for Turin 2006. The first organized winter sporting event was the Nordic Games, which were introduced in 1896, held in Sweden every four years, and allowed only Scandinavian countries to participate. After the 1920 Antwerp Summer Olympics, where athletes competed for medals in figure skating and ice hockey, the International Olympic Committee decided to stage a separate event highlighting winter sports. In 1924, the IOC held International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix, France. Despite initial protests from Sweden, who feared that the event would jeopardize the Nordic Games, the event proved to be an enormous success. The following year, the IOC modified its charter to establish a separate Winter Olympics, with the 1928 Games staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland formally designated the second Winter Olympics.

While the first Winter Games included some 250 athletes representing 16 countries, the Winter Olympics has evolved into a truly global event, with over 2,500 athletes competing for 85 countries in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Inside Britannica takes a look at the personalities and events that characterize one of the world's largest cultural events.

• A competitor in the first Winter Olympics at the age of eleven, this Norwegian emerged as figure-skating's first major female star by winning gold medals in the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Olympic Games. After retiring from the amateur circuit, she was able to parlay her fame into a successful Hollywood career. She remained the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympic Games history until 15 year-old Tara Lipinski captured the crown at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

• After a devastating plane crash in 1961 claimed the lives of the entire U.S figure skating team, this American helped restore U.S. figure skating to world prominence under the tutelage of legendary coach Carlo Fassi by winning the Women's World Title in 1966, followed by an Olympic gold medal two years later in Grenoble, France. Renowned for her elegance and artistic expression on the ice, she later won two Emmys for her performances in various television figure-skating specials.

• This charismatic German skater won consecutive gold medals in the 1984 and 1988 Winter Olympic Games with her flirtatious and graceful performances. Her accomplishments include four World Titles and six European Championships throughout her dominant run in the 1980's.

• Notorious for his brash behavior, this Frenchman won every downhill race he entered between 1966-1967, and earned the first World Cup for men. In the Olympic Winter Games of 1968 at Grenoble, France, he won gold medals for the downhill, slalom, and giant slalom races for men, becoming the second skier in Olympic history to accomplish that feat.

• This Austrian provided one of the most memorable moments of the Winter Games with his legendary wild ride at the 1976 Games in Innsbruck. Taking multiple risks and skiing with reckless abandon over the final 1,000 metres, this downhill specialist edged Switzerland's Bernhard Russi by only one-third of a second to take home the gold medal.

• This son of a wealthy textile merchant, known as much for his colourful playboy image as for his explosiveness on the slopes, won five Olympic medals, including two golds at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary.