Olympic Games about 10,500 competitors from 204 nations at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The scope and scale of the Winter Olympics is smaller. For example, Sochi hosted 2,873 athletes from 88 nations competing in 98 events during the 2014 Winter Olympics. During the Games most athletes and officials are housed in the Olympic Village. This village is intended to be a self-contained home for all the Olympic participants, and is furnished with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious expression. The IOC allowed the formation of National Olympic Committees representing nations that did not meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that
Winter Olympic Games with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The original five Winter Olympics sports (broken into nine disciplines) were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing (consisting of the disciplines military patrol, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, and ski jumping), and skating (consisting of the disciplines figure skating and speed skating). The Games were held every four years from 1924 to 1936, interrupted in 1940 and 1944 by World War II, and resumed in 1948. Until 1992 the Winter and Summer Olympic Games were held in the same years, but in accordance with a 1986 decision by the IOC to place