Apolo Ohno is a well-known for being an eight time Olympic Medal winner. He has won two golds, two silvers, and four bronze medals. He started out only at the age of 14 years old, because his father thought that keeping him involved in sports would keep him out of trouble. He quickly became the U.S. National Champion in 1997, and kept that title from 2001-2009. In 2008 he won the overall world title at the short-track world championships in South Korea. In 2010 he competed in the Olympic Games in Vancouver where he finally surpassed Bonnie Blair who had until then held the title of having won the most Olympic medals during the winter games for an American. Apolo Ohno truly kept his fans invested in watching the Olympic winter games.
This fascination with the Olympic games has a very long history, dating back as far as 776 B.C. in Ancient Greece. Initially the games were a religious festival, which celebrated Zeus, the Greek god. It wasn’t until 1894 that a French man turned this Ancient Greece event into what is now the Olympic Summer Games. During these summer games the Greeks took home the most medals.
The Scandanavian countries had there own sort of winter games called the Nordic Games but they were only open to fellow Scandanavian countries. These Nordic Games would take place every four years, but always in Sweden. It wasn’t until 1908 that other countries started to show interest in the idea of a winter Olympics, due to a figure skating event that took place during the Summer Games in London. The International Olympic Committee in 1911 tried to propose an official staging of the winter games, but Sweden did not want anything to do with that. Germany then responded with planning their own Winter Olympics but it was cancelled due to World War I. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, ice hockey now joined figure skating as an Olympic event during the Summer Olympics. Finally after this the Scandanavians decided it would be okay for the International Olympic Committee to sanction the at the time, International Winter Sports Week. This event was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France and due to the popularity and enthusiasm of all the 16 nations that competed, a year later the International Olympic Committee marked the 1924 event in France as the Winter Olympics.
The Scandanavian countries had there own sort of winter games called the Nordic Games but they were only open to fellow Scandanavian countries. These Nordic Games would take place every four years, but always in Sweden. It wasn’t until 1908 that other countries started to show interest in the idea of a winter Olympics, due to a figure skating event that took place during the Summer Games in London. The International Olympic Committee in 1911 tried to propose an official staging of the winter games, but Sweden did not want anything to do with that. Germany then responded with planning their own Winter Olympics but it was cancelled due to World War I. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, ice hockey now joined figure skating as an Olympic event during the Summer Olympics. Finally after this the Scandanavians decided it would be okay for the International Olympic Committee to sanction the at the time, International Winter Sports Week. This event was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France and due to the popularity and enthusiasm of all the 16 nations that competed, a year later the International Olympic Committee marked the 1924 event in France as the Winter Olympics.
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