Why does it take 4 years for the Olympics?

1924, and have since been held in the winter preceding every Summer Olympics

More Attention Possible

The change was initiated by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and the 11-member IOC Executive

Board. IOC officials said it would in the future concentrate greater attention on the Winter Games, which,

until now, had been widely regarded as a less-important preliminary to the Summer Games.

The change will also spread out the heavy organizational load that the IOC has borne every four years.

But perhaps most important in the minds of IOC members was the probability that Winter Games held in

separate years would command larger revenues from publicity and television rights.

ABC is paying a record $309 million for exclusive live U.S. television rights from the 1988 Winter Games

in Calgary, Canada, and is expected to lose money. For the Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, NBC

has paid a minimum of $250 million for U.S. television rights.

Winter Games Sports

The Winter Games feature downhill and cross-country skiing, ski jumping, figure and speed skating,

bobsled and luge racing, ice hockey and the biathlon, a combination of skiing and shooting.

The modern Olympic Games began in Athens in 1896, but it was 28 years before a winter sports

competition was introduced. Initially, the country staging the Summer Games had a priority right to

organize the Winter Games.

Thus, the 1924 Paris Olympics were preceded by the Chamonix Winter Games and the 1932 Los Angeles

Olympics by the first Lake Placid, N.Y., Winter Games.

The 1928 Games took place in Amsterdam, and the Dutch, having no mountains, relinquished their right

to hold the Winter Games in favor of the Swiss resort of St. Moritz.