The
Winter Olympic Games (
French:
Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international sporting event that occurs once every four years. Unlike the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics feature sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympics, the
1924 Winter Olympics, was held in
Chamonix, France. The original five 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 until 1936, after which they were interrupted by
World War II. The Olympics resumed in
1948 and was again held every four years. Until
1992, the Winter and
Summer Olympic Games were held in the same years, but in accordance with a 1986 decision by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to place the Summer and Winter Games on separate four-year cycles in alternating even-numbered years, the next Winter Olympics after 1992 was in
1994.