Finland at the 1908 Summer Olympics Finland at the 1908 Summer Olympics Finland competed at the Summer Olympic Games for the first time at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. The Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire at the time, but Finland had become a sovereign member of the International Olympic Committee in 1907. Verner Weckman became the first Finn to win an olympic gold. He was also the first Finn to win a gold at the 1906 Intercalated Games. 28 Finns won a medal at the games. No women entered from Finland. Aarne Salovaara and Johan Kemp competed in
Olympic Games the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which became known as the first Paralympics. Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year. Since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics. In 2001 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement guaranteeing that host cities would be contracted to manage both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The agreement came into effect at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, and