olympic athletes from russia got the most medals in the winter olympics.
olympic athletes from russia got the most medals in the winter olympics.
who gets the most medals in the winter olympics?
olympic athletes from russia
in all, 24 of the 72 participating nations at these games won at least one medal, as shown in the table below. a total of 15 countries won at least one gold medal and 18 nations won two or more medals. in total, 205 medals were distributed. germany finished on top of the table with 29 medals, including 12 gold, nine silver, and eight bronze. germany, which finished in third place in the medal standings at the 1994 winter olympics, won most of its medals in alpine skiing, speed skating, and luge, in which it won all three gold medals. german female athletes won 22 of the country's 29 medals. norway finished in second, as in 1994, with 25 medals, including nine won in cross-country skiing and five in biathlon. russia, which finished atop the medals standing in 1994, finished in third in 1998, with 18 medals, including five gold in the women's cross-country skiing. canada moved from seventh in 1994 to fourth in 1998 with 15 medals, and the united states remained in fifth place. netherlands finished in 6th place, 12 places higher than in 1994, thanks to 11 medals, all in speed skating. host japan beat its previous record of medals at a winter games, with 10 medals, including five gold. australia and denmark each won their first ever medals in the winter olympics with a bronze in women's slalom and a silver in women's curling, respectively. in addition, bulgaria and the czech republic each won their first gold medals at a winter olympics in women's biathlon and men's ice hockey respectively. finally, belgium won its first winter olympic medal since the 1948 winter olympics, and kazakhstan won its first winter olympics medal by a female athlete.
1998 winter olympics
in 2003 the ioc awarded the 2010 winter olympics to vancouver, thus allowing canada to host its second winter olympics. with a population of more than 2.5 million people vancouver is the largest metropolitan area to ever host a winter olympic games. over 2,500 athletes from 82 countries participated in 86 events. the death of georgian luger nodar kumaritashvili in a training run on the day of the opening ceremonies resulted in the whistler sliding centre changing the track layout on safety grounds. norwegian cross-country skier marit bjørgen won five medals in the six cross-country events on the women's programme. she finished the olympics with three golds, a silver and a bronze. for the first time, canada won a gold medal at an olympic games it hosted, having failed to do so at both the 1976 summer olympics in montreal and the 1988 winter olympics in calgary. in contrast to the lack of gold medals at these previous olympics, the canadian team finished first overall in gold medal wins, and became the first host nation—since norway in 1952—to lead the gold medal count, with 14 medals. in doing so, it also broke the record for the most gold medals won by a noc at a single winter olympics (the previous was 13, set by the soviet union in 1976 and matched by norway in 2002). the vancouver games were notable for the poor performance of the russian athletes. from their first winter olympics in 1956 to the 2006 games, a soviet or russian delegation had never been outside the top five medal-winning nations, but in 2010 they finished sixth in total medals and eleventh in gold medals. president dmitry medvedev called for the resignation of top sports officials immediately after the games. russia's disappointing performance at vancouver is cited as the reason behind the implementation of a doping scheme alleged to have been in operation at major events such as the 2014 games at sochi. the success of asian countries stood in stark contrast to the under-performing russian team, with vancouver marking a high point for medals won by asian countries. in 1992 the asian countries had won fifteen medals, three of which were gold. in vancouver the total number of medals won by athletes from asia had increased to thirty-one, with eleven of them being gold. the rise of asian nations in winter olympics sports is due in part to the growth of winter sports programmes and the interest in winter sports in nations such as south korea, japan and china.
winter olympic games