Olympic Games Czech Republic, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States) have participated in all twenty-three Winter Games to date. The host city for an Olympic Games is usually chosen seven to eight years ahead of their celebration. The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The prospective host city applies to its country's National Olympic Committee; if more than one city from the same country submits a proposal to its NOC, the national committee typically holds an internal selection, since only one city per NOC can
Doping at the Olympic Games drink "magic" potions and eat exotic meats in the hopes of giving them an athletic edge on their competition. If they were caught cheating, their likenesses were often engraved into stone and placed in a pathway that led to the Olympic stadium. In the modern Olympic era, chemically enhancing one's performance has evolved into a sophisticated science, but in the early years of the Modern Olympic movement the use of performance-enhancing drugs was almost as crude as its ancient predecessors. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his