Winter Olympics Quiz: 15 Questions From Chamonix 1924 to Milano Cortina 2026

Chamonix staged an "International Winter Sports Week" in early 1924. The International Olympic Committee later recognized it as the first Olympic Winter Games. St. Moritz (1928), Lake Placid (1932) and Oslo (1952) all hosted later editions.

Figure skating made its Olympic debut at the London 1908 Summer Games, held in the autumn on indoor ice. Antwerp 1920 is a tempting pick because it brought both figure skating and ice hockey to the Summer program, which helped build the case for a dedicated Winter Games.

Albertville (Winter) and Barcelona (Summer) both took place in 1992. The next Winter Games came just two years later in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, starting the staggered schedule fans know today.

Biathletes ski a course and stop at a range to shoot at small targets from prone and standing positions. Every miss costs them, either through a penalty loop or added time. Ski jumping plus cross-country skiing is a different sport: Nordic combined.

Skeleton racers dive onto the sled after a sprint start and travel head-first, chin just above the ice. Luge athletes lie on their backs and go feet-first, while bobsleigh and monobob crews sit inside a steerable sled.

Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited island in the Firth of Clyde, produces an unusually dense granite that resists water and chipping. It has supplied stones for Olympic curling for decades, alongside granite from Trefor in Wales.

Snowboarding joined the program at Nagano, Japan, in 1998 with giant slalom and halfpipe events. It has since grown into one of the most-watched parts of the Games, with events such as slopestyle, big air and snowboard cross.

Women's ski jumping arrived at Sochi 2014 after years of campaigning by athletes, nine decades after the men's event first appeared. Germany's Carina Vogt won that first normal hill title.

Ski mountaineering debuted in Bormio on February 19, 2026, in heavy snowfall. Racers climb on skis, run sections carrying them, then race back down. Switzerland's Marianne Fatton won the sport's first-ever Olympic gold, and Oriol Cardona Coll gave Spain its first Winter Olympic title since 1972.

Eric Heiden swept every distance from the 500 m sprint to the 10,000 m. His five golds stood as the most by anyone at a single Winter Games for 46 years, and they remain the record for individual events at one Games.

Norway's Johannes Høsflot Klæbo swept all six men's cross-country events, sealing the record in the 50 km mass start. That lifted his career total to 11 Olympic golds, the most by any Winter Olympian. Only swimmer Michael Phelps has more Olympic titles overall.

Norway leads the all-time Winter Olympic table and extended that lead in 2026, topping the medal standings with 18 golds and 41 medals. Those 18 golds are the most by any nation at a single Winter Games.

Tina and Milo are stoat siblings named after the two host areas, Cortina and Milano. Tina represented the Olympic Games and Milo the Paralympic Games. The design came from students at a school in Taverna, Calabria, and was chosen through a public vote.

The Games closed on February 22, 2026, inside the Verona Arena, a Roman amphitheater nearly 2,000 years old. San Siro in Milan hosted the opening ceremony, which is why it is such a convincing wrong answer.

In July 2024 the IOC awarded the 2030 Winter Games to the French Alps and the 2034 Games to Salt Lake City–Utah. It will be France's fourth Winter Olympics, after Chamonix 1924, Grenoble 1968 and Albertville 1992.