11 Random Facts About The Winter Olympics You Probably Didn’t Know

As the 2022 Olympic Winter Games are now upon us, we venture back into that world of not just watching the games each day but learning about the various winter sports and the games themselves.

We gathered 11 random things about the Winter Olympics that we bet you didn’t know.

• The only country to have won a gold medal at every Olympic Winter Games is the United States.

• Until 1992, the Olympic Summer Games and the Olympic Winter Games were held in the same year.

• The oldest person to receive a medal at the Olympic Winter Games is Anders Haugen, who was born in Norway but competed for the United States. He competed in 1924 but didn’t get his bronze medal until 50 years later when he was 86 years old.

• Debra Thomas became the first black athlete to medal at the Winter Olympics at the 1988 Games in Calgary.

• More than 24 million people in the U.K. tuned in to watch the famous Bolero figure skating routine by British pairs skaters, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984.

• The Olympic Winter Games have never been hosted in the southern hemisphere.

• The youngest female snowboarding gold medalist is the United States' Chloe Kim in Pyeongchang in 2018 at age 17.

• Olympic hockey pucks are made of vulcanized rubber and must be frozen to reduce friction before each game.

• The world’s first bobsleigh club was founded in St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1897.

• The word “ski” is a Norwegian word that comes from the Old Norse word “skid”, a split length of wood.

• The word “hockey” comes from the old French word “hocquet” meaning stick.