From Henie to Tomba, the Winter Olympics have seen it all (Feature)

By John Bagratuni Jan 27, 2010, 5:06 GMT

Hamburg - The Winter Olympics have come a long way since a slow but enthusiastic start 1924 in Chamonix.

When Charles Jewtraw won the first event, 500 metres speed skating, in the French winter sport resort, he didn't even know that he was an Olympic champion because the so-called 'International Sport Week 1924' was only recognized as the first Winter Olympics a year later by the International Olympic Committee.

By contrast, the last gold medal to be awarded, in the men's 50km cross country, was given to home boy Giorgio di Centa during the closing ceremony of the Turin 2006 Games in front of a television audience of hundreds of millions.

The snow and ice Games have moved from famous winter sports resorts such as Chamonix, St Moritz and Cortina d'Ampezzo, via the famous Holmenkollen in Oslo and the winter wonderland of Lillehammer, to the big cities such as Nagano and Salt Lake City which have mountain venues nearby.

More than 2,500 athletes from at least 80 countries are set to compete in Vancouver for 86 gold medals, up from the humble beginnings of 258 athletes from 16 countries who came to Chamonix in 16 events, 26 years after the Olympics were revived 1896 in Athens.

Winter Olympians now include cross-country skiers from Kenya and sliders from India after British ski-jumper Michael Edwards, better known as 'Eddie the Eagle,' was the first more exotic athlete in 1988.

Since 1994, the Winter Games no longer take place in the same year as the summer edition, allowing the IOC to cash in as much as possible from the event.

Norwegian cross-country skier Bjorn Dahlie is the most successful winter Olympian with eight gold and four silver medals, American Eric Heiden famously swept the five speed skating golds in 1980, Norway's Ole Einar Bjorndalen the four biathlon races in 2002 and Finnish ski- jumper Matti Nykanen topped all three 1988 competitions.

A group of US college boys achieved the famous 'miracle on ice' 1980 against the Soviet Union which had dominated ice hockey from the late 1950s like Canada had in the beginning.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated to a full board of perfect marks to Marice Ravel's Bolero in 1984, and figure skating greats also include Sonia Henie of Norway and East German Katarina Witt.

While Norway, Finland and the Soviets/Russia excelled in Nordic events, East Germany ruled bob and luge and speed skating, the latter together with the skating-crazy Dutch. The new sport of short-track speed skating has now also brought South Korea and China on the Olympic medal tables.

Flamboyant Italian Alberto Tomba and the quiet Swede Ingemar Stenmark stood out in alpine skiing where Austrian Toni Sailer got the first sweep 1956 in Cortina.

The feat was repeated by Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy in 1968, including a controversial slalom gold after his Austrian rival Karl Schranz was disqualified.

Schranz was kicked out of the 1972 Games because he was deemed a professional athlete, just before the amateur rule was finally scrapped.

While new sports such as freestyle skiing and snowboarding attract a new and younger audience, the growing commercialisation also led to further scandals.

The bribes-for-votes affair around Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Games changed the IOC's Olympic bidding process.

The 2002 event saw a major figure skating scandal which brought an overhaul to the judging system. Eight years earlier, Tonya Harding had tried to enhance her Olympic chances when he had rival Nancy Kerrigan clubbed against her knee in a bizarre US skating soap opera.

Germany-born Spaniard Johann Muehlegg was stripped of his three 2002 cross-country golds over blood doping and Italian police raided the quarters of Austrian athletes and officials in connection with blood doping in 2006.