1924w

Chamonix 1924

Alpine Skiing

Biathlon

Bobsleigh

Cross-Country Skiing

Curling

Figure Skating

Ice Hockey

Nordic Combined

Ski Jumping

Speed Skating

Austria

Canada

Czechia

Finland

France

Great Britain

Japan

Norway

Sweden

Switzerland

United States

The various delegations gathered in front of the Chamonix town hall for the Olympic Parade of Nations\. They were joined by mountain guides, members of a variety of sport clubs \(including the local football team\), ski school and Alpine ski club representatives, firemen, brass bands and local government officials\.

Let the Games begin!

As the tournament progressed, this veritable festival of goals attracted larger and larger crowds &ndash; especially for the Canada\-USA encounter &ndash; with one player in particular, Harold Ellis &ldquo;Harry&rdquo; Watson, putting in consistently brilliant performances that delighted the French public, and establishing records that will likely never be beaten\.

Harry Watson and the Canadian ice hockey goal glut 

In the opening event, the 500m, held on 26 January and dominated by US skater Charles Jewtraw, Larsen and Thunberg registered exactly the same time \(44\.80\) and were both awarded a bronze medal\. The 1,500m saw the Norwegian and the Finn lock horns again as, drawn together in the fourth

Larsen delivers medal bonanza for Norway

According to the official report of the 1924 Winter Games, &ldquo;The course must be completed by the entire patrol, which must dress in military uniform and be equipped with arms and backpacks&rdquo;\. Six patrols \(Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland\) were sent off at three\-minute intervals from the Olympic

Switzerland land military patrol gold 

In Chamonix, there were eight competitors vying for gold in the women&rsquo;s individual competition\. Adding to the sense of anticipation, was the hype surrounding one of the participants, an 11\-year\-old Norwegian prodigy named Sonja Henie\. However, there was to be disappointment for Henie&rsquo;s fans, as the future superstar&rsquo;s lack of

Szabo lights up the ice 

Welcome back to "This Week in Olympic Sports History," where Olympics.com looks into the events that have marked the world of sports every week.
This week, we remember the anniversary of the first Olympic Winter Games held in Chamonix, France, while the fourth Winter Youth Olympic Games are underway in

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This year, 2024, marks the 100th year since the inaugural Olympic Winter Games, which were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924.
Since that inaugural event, then known as the "International Winter Sports Week" in celebration of Paris hosting the 1924 Olympic Games that summer, the Winter Games have evolved from

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On 4 February 2022, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 will officially get underway. Over the following two weeks, the best winter sports athletes in the world will take to the snow and ice equipped with state-of-the-art gear that will help unlock their elite abilities.
From fibreglass sleighs to unique

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PYEONGCHANG-GUN, SOUTH KOREA - FEBRUARY 20:  Vanessa Hinz of Germany shoots during the Biathlon 2x6km Women + 2x7.5km Men Mixed Relay on day 11 of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Alpensia Biathlon Centre on February 20, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea.  (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

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Ice hockey is one of the signature sports in the Winter Olympic programme, and regardless of the Games, always seems to produce incredible moments of drama and action.
In fact, there have been so many great ice hockey moments at the Olympics that compiling a list of 10 was quite

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Aged 83, Charles Jewtraw recounts his fantastic Olympic destiny for Sports Illustrated magazine in its December 1983 edition: &ldquo;It was like a fairy tale\. I was a poor boy from Lake Placid\. I'd been national champion but I'd retired from skating\. I wanted to move on\. I was being tutored

26 January 1924: Charles Jewtraw was the inaugural winner at the Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix

Thanks to a group of enthusiastic French organizers the future of the Olympic Games was about to be changed by a week of winter sports competitions in Chamonix\.

Relive the glories of past Olympic Winter Games: Chamonix 1924

&ldquo;These Olympic sports can help us perpetuate idealised sport; we must take care to keep them from dishonour and corruption\. From a practical point of view, there are certainly great difficulties involved in achieving this goal, but the rewards are great if sport is kept honest and the recent unprecedented

Winter Games given stamp of approval

Unlike the current Olympic programme, in which the 50km cross\-country race is always held on the same day as the closing ceremony and is the last individual event on the sporting programme, at Chamonix 1924 the demanding race, &nbsp;kicked off the skiing portion of the Games on 30 January\. A

Haug excels in the shadow of Mont Blanc

One of them, Jacob Tullin Thams, was a successful Norwegian skier who had developed his own jumping technique known as the Kongsberger, which involved bending the upper body at the hip and extending the arms at the front with the skis parallel to each other\. This approach, which was gradually

Tullin Thams soars with wind in his sails 

Like the majority of competitions organised at the foot of Mont Blanc during Chamonix 1924, the four\-man bobsleigh event at the celebrated P&egrave;lerins track on 2\-3 February,, attracted large, raucous crowds\. The numerous sharp turns were particularly popular with fans, who craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the

Scherrer’s stroke of luck leads to Olympic success

On 30 January 1924, Gr&oslash;ttumsbr&aring;ten lined up in the 50km cross\-country skiing competition, in which racers, departing every minute, engaged in a battle against the clock\. Setting off fourth, at 8\.40 in the morning, he quickly overtook the three competitors who had started before him, and was then faced with

Grøttumsbråten lays down marker in Chamonix

A defenseman with a larger\-than\-life personality, Drury was selected to play for the US hockey team that competed at the inaugural Olympic ice hockey tournament at the Antwerp Games in 1920, which also doubled as the first\-ever IIHF World Championships\.

Drury propels US hockey team to runners-up spot

And so it was that on 31 January, Helen Engelmann and Alfred Berger \(AUT\) triumphed in Chamonix courtesy of their technical merit score, pipping Ludowika and Walter Jakobsson \(FIN\) and Pierre Brunet and Andr&eacute;e Joly \(FRA\) to a hotly contested gold medal\.

Brunet and Joly launch pioneering career

Indeed, of the matches played on the curling sheet installed at the centre of the Olympic ice rink, the only one that could be viewed as decisive was Great Britain\-Sweden\. Ably led by skip Johan Petter &Aring;hl&eacute;n, the Scandinavians held on well at the beginning, but fell away to eventually

Åhlén lives out his curling dream

The men&rsquo;s figure skating competition in Chamonix got underway in the morning of 29 January with the skaters required to perform a series of compulsory figures, namely rocker, counter, one foot eight, paragraph three, paragraph loop and paragraph bracket\. Grafstr&ouml;m, one of figure skating&rsquo;s greatest ever exponents of compulsory figures,

Grafström takes figure skating gold

On the morning of 26 January, the first day of competition, the confident Finn finished third in the 500m, 0\.80 seconds behind the winner, Charles Jewtraw\. Then, in the afternoon, he put in a commanding performance in the 5,000m, clocking in at 8:39\.00, almost nine seconds ahead of compatriot Julius

Thunberg racks up speed skating podiums

Skutnabb&rsquo;s Olympic adventure began quietly, with a 10th place in the 500m, which was won by Charles Jewtraw \(USA\)\. In the 1,500m, while Thunberg prevailed in striking fashion, his compatriot also made a considerable impression on the fans, pipping Norwegian 5,000m world record holder Harald Str&oslash;m at the line in

Skutnabb sparks to life in the 10,000m

Born in 1900, Jewtraw has already made his name in his homeland, triumphing at the US National Championships in 1921 and 1923 and setting an American record of 9\.4 seconds over 100 yards\. However, in Chamonix, versus several highly fancied Scandinavian skaters, he was not viewed as one of the

Speed skiing

Jewtraw becomes first-ever Winter Games champion 

The ski jump was built on a hill known as &ldquo;Le Mont&rdquo;, situated close to Glacier des Bossons\. Approximately 79m long, it would supposedly enable skiers to comfortably jump distances of more than 60m\. Meanwhile, the bobsleigh track, measuring 893m and featuring 19 devilish turns, was constructed out of stone

Chamonix Games take shape

At the seventh Olympic Congress session on 5 June 1921, the idea of establishing a winter version of the Olympic Games was floated by IOC members\. Mountainous countries in the western hemisphere came out in favour of the idea, but representatives of the Scandinavian nations sought to block the plan,

Birth of the Olympic Winter Games

Chamonix 1924 - Stories Mosaic

President Bach was joined by IOC Member HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, Mayor of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Eric Fournier, French Minister of Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games Amélie Oudéa-Castera, and Marie-Françoise Potereau, Vice-President of the French National Olympic Committee, in charge of Paris 2024 and Gender Equality – amongst

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Celebrations at Chamonix

IOC President celebrates 100 years of Olympic Winter Games

The Olympic Winter Games are turning 100 years tomorrow, marking a revolutionary century of mountain sports driven by technological leaps and social progress. As we celebrate 100 years of sport on snow and ice, we look ahead to see how the Games can adapt to the challenges ahead.

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100 years of the Olympic Winter Games: celebrating mountain magic while looking to the future

When you watch the footage of Herma Planck-Szabo, the first-ever gold medallist in women’s figure skating at an Olympic Winter Games at Chamonix 1924, it is like poetry in motion.
She moves across the ice with command, clad in a long black dress and skating outdoors, but her skates trace

French figure skater Andree Joly (later known as Andree Brunet, 1901-1993) and AmericanÂ figure skater Beatrix LoughranÂ (1900-1975)Â hold hands as they maintain a pose during a practice session at the Stade Olympique de Chamonix during the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, 16th January 1924. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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