The Winter Olympics is held every four years and comprises of a variety of winter related sporting events. The events include sports such as skiing, ice hockey, ice skating and bobsledding. Initially the International Olympic Committee had these events as part of the regular Olympics, but later decided to separate the Olympics into two unique events, thus by creating the first Winter Olympics in 1924.
In 1925, the Olympic committee decided to officially consider the week long events held in Chamonix, France as the first official Winter Olympic Games. Since then, the Winter Olympics has occurred every four years. During the history of the Winter Olympics the numbers of games have increased. It now features fifteen sporting events that range from skiing to speed skating. The events change ever so often, with sports being added and in some cases sporting events being discontinued.
Currently the United States has hosted the Winter Olympics four times, making it the most hosted nation. The last time the Winter Olympics was hosted within the United States was in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002. Tornio, Italy hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics, along with Vancouver, Canada scheduled to host in 2010, and Sochi Russia scheduled for 2014.
Controversy surrounded the 2002 Winter Olympics when it was revealed that the Salt Lake City, Utah organizers for the games had bribed members of the International Olympic Committee to become the hosts for the 2002 games. This has led to a change on how the host nation is selected and led to several high profile committee members resigning.
Over the years the Winter Olympics has continued to develop adding new sporting events and was recently hosted by the largest city to ever hold the Winter Olympics. Torino, Italy is the largest city to ever be host to the Winter Olympic Games.
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