A Winter Olympics First

    On January 24, 1924 Olympic history was made when the first Winter Olympic Games were opened at Chamonix, France at the foot of Mont Blanc. At first it was called The International Winter Sports Week. It was afterwords that the International Olympic Committee changed the event name to the Winter Olympic Games I. Although some winter sports had been a part of the Olympic program since 1916, this was the first time that the had been held as one festival. The reason that the festival was held in France was that the Summer Olympics were scheduled to be held in Paris that summer. When the Winter Olympic Games were formalized, it was then that bidding for the summer and winter games were separated.

   In that this was the first formal Winter Olympics many firsts were made as well as a couple of lasts. Sixteen nations showed up for the games, fourteen of the nations were European and then there was the USA plus Canada. The very first Gold medal was awarded to the USA, it would be the only Gold metal the Americans earned of their four metals. Half of the sixteen Gold metals awarded were split evenly between Norway and Finland, the two nations took home 17 and 11 total metals respectively. Ten of the competing nations took metals home. The games also marked the first appearance in the Olympics of then 11 year old Sonje Henie, who would win at the next three games.

    As to the lasts, it was the last time that a Summer Olympic title would be defended at the Winter games, that happened in two events. Tomorrow we willl look at former Detroit Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell. I still would like to catch more feedback from my overseas readers, please email at sabrkev@gmail, as I have some regular readers from places like Malaysia and Israel that I would like to hear from.