Prelude

When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was established in 1894, one of the sports proposed for the programme was ice skating. However, no skating was conducted at the Olympics until the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, which featured four figure skating events. Ulrich Salchow (10-fold World champion) and Madge Syers (the first competitive woman figure skater) won the individual titles with ease.

Three years later, Italian count Eurgenio Brunetta d’Usseaux proposed to the IOC to stage a week with winter sports as part of the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. The organizers opposed this idea, wanting to promote the Nordic Games, a winter sports competition held every four years between competitors from the Nordic countries. However, this same idea was again proposed for the 1916 Games, which were to be held in Berlin. A winter sports week with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and Nordic skiing was planned, but the 1916 Olympic were cancelled after the outbreak of World War I.

The first Olympics after the war, the 1920 Games in Antwerp again featured figure skating, while ice hockey made its Olympic debut. At the IOC Congress held the next year, it was decided that the organizers of the next Olympics (France) would also host a separate “international Winter Sports Week”, under patronage of the IOC. This week proved a great success, and in 1925 the IOC decided to create separate Winter Olympic Games, not connected to the Summer Olympics. The 1924 events were retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympics at the 1926 IOC Session.