The
Nordic Games was the first international
multi-sport event that focused primarily on
winter sports, and was held at varying intervals between 1901 and 1926. It was organized by
Sweden’s Central Association for the Promotion of Sports, and more specifically by
Viktor Balck, a member of that association and one of the five original members of the
International Olympic Committee. It was, in many ways, a to the modern
Winter Olympic Games, whose success was a contributing factor (along with the social and economic turmoil following
World War I) to the Nordic Games's discontinuation in the 1920s.