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1928 Winter Olympics

Multi-sport event in Sankt Moritz, Switzerland

Field	Value
image	1928 Winter Olympics poster.jpg
image_size	150
caption	Hugo Laubi's poster for the 1928 Winter Olympics
host_city	St. Moritz, Switzerland
nations	25
athletes	467 (441 men, 26 women)
events	14 in 4 sports (8 disciplines)
opening	11 February 1928
closing	19 February 1928
opened_by	President Edmund Schulthess
stadium	St. Moritz Olympic Ice Rink
winter_prev	[Chamonix 1924](1924-winter-olympics)
winter_next	[Lake Placid 1932](1932-winter-olympics)
summer_prev	[Paris 1924](1924-summer-olympics)
summer_next	[Amsterdam 1928](1928-summer-olympics)

The 1928 Winter Olympics, officially known as the II Olympic Winter Games (; ; ; ) and commonly known as St. Moritz 1928 (; ), were an international winter multi-sport event that was celebrated from 11 to 19 February 1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

The 1928 Games were the first true Winter Olympics to be held as a stand-alone event, not in conjunction with a Summer Olympics. The preceding 1924 Winter Games were retroactively renamed the inaugural Winter Olympics, although they had in fact been organised alongside the 1924 Summer Olympics in France. Before 1924, the winter events were included in the schedule of the Summer Games and there were no separate Winter Games. The 1928 Winter Games also replaced the now redundant Nordic Games, which had been held at varying intervals since early in the 20th century.

The hosts were challenged by fluctuating weather conditions; the opening ceremony was held in a blizzard, while warm weather conditions plagued sporting events throughout the rest of the Games. The 10,000 metre speed-skating event was controversially abandoned and officially cancelled. Filmed footage of the games exists in a silent, feature-length documentary, The White Stadium.

Highlights

Sonja Henie of Norway returned to the Winter Olympics, having taken part in 1924 at the age of 11, and made history by winning the ladies' figure skating aged 15. She became the youngest Olympic champion in history (a distinction she held for 70 years), and went on to defend her title at the next two Winter Olympics.
Norway's Ivar Ballangrud won the Olympic title in the 5,000-metre speed skating event, and Clas Thunberg of Finland won both the 500 m and the 1,500 m.
Norway finished at the top of the medal table with a total of six gold medals, four silver, and five bronze, totalling 15 medals. The United States finished second in the table with six medals overall.
Switzerland won a single bronze medal, the lowest medal haul by a host nation at any Olympic Games.
American Irving Jaffee was leading the 10,000-metre speed skating race, having outskated Norwegian defending world champion Bernt Evensen in their heat, when rising temperatures thawed the ice. In a controversial ruling, the Norwegian referee cancelled the entire competition; the International Olympic Committee stepped in to reverse the referee's decision and awarded Jaffee the gold medal, but the International Skating Union later overruled the IOC and restored the ruling. Evensen, for his part, stated publicly that Jaffee should be awarded the gold medal, but that did not happen.

Events

Medals were awarded in 14 events contested in 4 sports (8 disciplines).

Bobsleigh

Ice skating

Demonstration sports

Military patrol
Skijoring

Venues

Main article: Venues of the 1928 Winter Olympics

St. Moritz Olympic Ice Rink – Figure skating, Ice hockey, Speed skating
Around the hills of St. Moritz – Cross-country skiing, Nordic combined (cross-country skiing)
Olympiaschanze St. Moritz – Nordic combined (ski jumping), Ski jumping
St. Moritz-Celerina Olympic Bobrun – Bobsleigh
Cresta Run – Skeleton

Participating nations

Athletes from 25 nations competed at these Games, up from 16 in 1924. Nations making their first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games were Argentina (first participation of a delegation coming from a country belonging to the Southern Hemisphere), Estonia, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Romania.

Participating National Olympic Committees

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees

IOC Letter Code	Country	Athletes
GER	GER	44
SUI	SUI	41
AUT	AUT	39
FRA	FRA	38
GBR	GBR	32
TCH	TCH	29
POL	POL	26
BEL	BEL	25
NOR	NOR	25
SWE	SWE	24
USA	USA	24
CAN	CAN	23
FIN	FIN	18
HUN	HUN	13
ITA	ITA	13
ARG	ARG	10
ROM	ROM	10
NED	NED	7
JPN	JPN	6
YUG	YUG	6
LUX	LUX	5
MEX	MEX	5
EST	EST	2
LAT	LAT	1
LTU	LTU	1
Total	464

Medal count

Main article: 1928 Winter Olympics medal table

Podium sweeps

Date	Sport	Event	NOC	Gold	Silver	Bronze
14 February	Cross-country skiing	Men's 50 kilometre	SWE	Per-Erik Hedlund	Gustaf Jonsson	Volger Andersson
17 February	Cross-country skiing	Men's 18 kilometre	NOR	Johan Grøttumsbråten	Ole Hegge	Reidar Ødegaard
18 February	Nordic combined	Individual	NOR	Johan Grøttumsbråten	Hans Vinjarengen	Jon Snersrud

Notes

References

(2004). "Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement". Greenwood Press.
"1928 Sankt Moritz Winter Games". Sports Reference LLC.
"St. Moritz 1928". International Olympic Committee.
(2007). "The Big Book of Jewish Sports Heroes: An Illustrated Compendium of Sports History and The 150 Greatest Jewish Sports Stars". SP Books.
(September 15, 1906). "The International Jewish Sports Hall ...". SP Books.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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