1.
Chamonix
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Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, more commonly known as Chamonix, is a commune in the Haute-Savoie département in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It was the site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924, the communes population of around 8,900 ranks 1, 089th within the country of France. The north side of the summit of Mont Blanc, and therefore the summit itself are part of the village of Chamonix, to the south side, the situation is different depending on the country. Italy considers that the passes through the top. France considers that the runs along the rocky Tournette under the summit cap. The south side was in France, assigned to the commune of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains sharing the summit with its neighbor Chamonix and it is this situation for France, which is found on the French IGN maps. With an area of 245 km2, Chamonix is the fourth largest commune in mainland France, however, in 1786 the inhabitants bought their freedom from the canons of Sallanches, to whom the priory had been transferred in 1519. In 1530, the inhabitants obtained from the Count of the Genevois the privilege of holding two fairs a year, while the valley was visited by the civil officials and by the bishops of Geneva. But travellers for pleasure were very rare, the first party to publish an account of their visit was that of Dr. Richard Pococke, Mr. William Windham and others, such as the Englishmen who visited the Mer de Glace in 1741. In 1742 came P. Martel and several other Genevese, in 1760 H. B. de Saussure, the commune successfully lobbied to change its name from Chamonix to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in 1916. The holding of the first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix in 1924 further raised Chamonixs profile as an international tourist destination, during the Second World War, a Childrens Home operated in Chamonix, in which several dozens of Jewish children were hidden from the Nazis. Some of their saviors were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations, the commune of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc includes 16 villages and hamlets. Chamonix has a climate, between oceanic and humid continental climate, with an average annual precipitation of 1,275 mm. Summers are mild and winters are cold and snowy, Population Change Sources, Ldh/EHESS/Cassini until 1962, INSEE database from 1968 · Population Over Time Chamonix is a winter sports resort town. As the highest European mountain west of Russia, Mont Blanc attracts mountain climbers, there is a cable car up to the 3,842 m Aiguille du Midi. Constructed in 1955, it was then the highest cable car in the world, the town of Chamonix is served by French Route Nationale 205, nicknamed the Route blanche, or white route, due to its snowiness. This is an extension of French autoroute 40, similarly nicknamed the autoroute blanche, which ends at Le Fayet, the 11. 6-km Mont Blanc Tunnel originates here, linking Chamonix to Courmayeur in Italy. Chamonix is linked to Switzerland by what used to be RN 506a, in 2006, it was converted to a Route Départementale 1506, with a part of it integrated into RN205
2.
Olympic sports
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Olympic sports are sports contested in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The 2016 Summer Olympics included 28 sports, with five additional sports due to be added to the 2020 Summer Olympics, the 2014 Winter Olympics included seven sports. The number and kinds of events may change slightly from one Olympiad to another, each Olympic sport is represented by an international governing body, namely an International Federation. The International Olympic Committee establishes a hierarchy of sports, disciplines, according to this hierarchy, the Olympic sports can be subdivided into multiple disciplines, which are often assumed to be distinct sports. Examples include swimming and water polo, or figure skating and speed skating, in their turn, disciplines can be subdivided into events, for which medals are actually awarded. The IOCs requirements reflect participation in the Olympic Games as well—more stringent toward men, previous Olympic Games included sports which are no longer present on the current program, like polo and tug of war. These sports, known as discontinued sports, were removed either because of lack of interest or absence of an appropriate governing body. Archery and tennis are examples of sports that were competed at the early Games and were dropped by the IOC. Demonstration sports have often included in the Olympic Games, usually to promote a local sport from the host country or to gauge interest. Some such sports, like baseball and curling, were added to the official Olympic program, baseball, however, was discontinued after the 2008 Summer Olympics. The term sport in Olympic terminology refers to all the events that are sanctioned by one international sport federation, one sport, by Olympic definition, may be divided into several disciplines, which are often regarded as separate sports in common language. Skating is a winter Olympic sport represented by the International Skating Union, and includes four disciplines, figure skating, speed skating, short track speed skating, and synchronized skating. The sport with the largest number of Olympic disciplines is skiing, with six, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, nordic combined, snowboarding, other notable multi-discipline sports are gymnastics, cycling, volleyball, wrestling, canoeing, and bobsleigh. The disciplines listed here are only those contested in the Olympics—gymnastics has two disciplines, while cycling and wrestling have three each. It should also be noted that the IOC definition of a discipline may differ from that used by an international federation, for example, the IOC considers artistic gymnastics a single discipline, but the International Federation of Gymnastics classifies mens and womens artistic gymnastics as separate disciplines. An event, by IOC definition, is a competition that leads to the award of medals. The number of events per sport ranges from a minimum of two to a maximum of 47 in athletics, which despite its number of events and its diversity is not divided into disciplines. The only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic program are athletics, aquatics, cycling, fencing, the only winter sports that were included in all Winter Olympic Games are skiing, skating, and ice hockey
3.
Gaston Vidal
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Gaston Vidal was a French politician and sports leader. Vidal began his career as a teacher at a primary school of Moulins. In 1914, he joined the Chasseurs Alpins and was promoted to captain because of his brilliant talent, in 1919, he was elected as municipal councilor at Vichy. Later, he became general counsel of Moulins-East from 1919 to 1925 and deputy Republican Socialist Allier for 1919 to 1924 and member of the military commissions and military pensions. He also became Undersecretary of State for Technical Education from 17 January 1921 to 29 March 1924 and he later became a general councilor of Vichy from 1927 to 1928. He chaired the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, after the First World War, he created single-sport federations for football, rugby, swimming and field hockey. He was also a member of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee and he took a decisive role alongside, Frantz Reichel, in preparing the Paris Olympics in 1924. Vidal was succeeded by Justinian Clary, from 1925 to 1931
4.
Olympic Stadium
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Olympic Stadium is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies, many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words Olympic Stadium as part of their names. Olympic Stadium may also be named a stadium which hosts Olympic sports. In the case of the Summer Olympics, athletics competitions and the final are traditionally held in the Olympic Stadium. Exceptions to this have occurred though at the 1900,1996 and 2016 Summer Olympics as well as at the 2010 and 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games, early Winter Games often used figure skating venues as focal points. These were often designated as the Olympic Stadium, usually hosting the opening and closing ceremonies, a number of stadiums have been used in more than one Olympics, in those cities that have held the Games more than once. Lysgårdsbakkene was the stadium of a Winter Olympics and a Winter Youth Olympic Games. Bergiselschanze was the stadium of two Winter Olympics and one Winter YOG. Olympiahalle jointly shared the Olympic Stadium role with Bergiselschanze during the two Winter Olympics, but not during the Winter YOG, only one stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, has been the main stadium of two Summer Olympics. In addition to the inaugural Summer Olympics, Panathinaiko Stadio was also the stadium of the only Intercalated Games held. A number, including both the Panathinaiko Stadio and the Vélodrome de Vincennes, have hosted events at subsequent Olympics. The London Games of 2012 were not opened and closed at the rebuilt Wembley Stadium, the site of the 1948 Olympic Stadium, Wembley was, however, the venue for some 2012 Olympic football matches. Likewise, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which was the stadium for the 1956 games. Lake Placids 1930 Olympic Stadium was utilized in the 1980 Lake Placid games as the speed skating venue, olympiahalle hosted figure skating and short-track speed skating during the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics. Stockholm Olympic Stadium hosted equestrian events for the 1956 Summer Olympics, Olympic Past & Future Stadiums - BALLPARKS. com Summer Olympic Stadiums 1896 - on Google Maps
5.
1928 Winter Olympics
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The 1928 Winter Olympics, officially known as the II Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated February 11–19,1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The 1928 Games were the first true Winter Olympics held on its own as they were not in conjunction with a Summer Olympics, the preceding 1924 Games were retroactively renamed the inaugural Winter Olympics, though they had been in fact part of the 1924 Summer Olympics. All preceding Winter Events of the Olympic Games were the winter part of the schedule of the Summer Games. These games also replaced the now redundant Nordic Games, that were held quadrennially since early in the century, fluctuating weather conditions made these Olympics memorable. The opening ceremony was held in a blizzard, in contrast, warm weather conditions plagued the Olympics for the remainder of the Games, requiring cancellations of one event with temperatures as high as 25 °C. Sonja Henie wins her first gold medal in figure skating. Ivar Ballangrud won the Olympic title in the 5, 000m speed skating and Clas Thunberg won the 500m, norway finished on top of the medal table with a total of 6 gold medals,4 silver and 5 bronze, a total of 15 medals. The USA finished second in the table, the single bronze medal won by Switzerland is the lowest output by a host nation at an Olympics. Medals were awarded in 14 events contested in 4 sports, nations making their first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games were Argentina, Estonia, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Romania. List of 1928 Winter Olympics medal winners 1928 Summer Olympics Winter Olympic Games Olympic Games International Olympic Committee List of IOC country codes St Moritz 1928, the program of the 1928 St. Moritz Winter Olympics
6.
1920 Summer Olympics
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The 1920 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium. No fixed host city was proposed at the time, the 1916 Summer Olympics, to be held in Berlin, capital of the German Empire, were cancelled due to World War I. Hungary, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were banned from competing in the Games, Germany did not return to Olympic competition until 1928 and instead hosted a series of games called Deutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the Winter edition of 1922. The Sailing events were held in Ostend, Belgium, and two in Amsterdam, Netherlands, no fixed host city was proposed at the time. The organising committee was created on 9 August 1913, Beerschot V. A. C. and Nicolaas Jan Cupérus, president of the Belgian Gymnastics Federation. The first action of the committee was to send a letter to the IOC in Paris. On 13 September 1913, Pierre de Coubertin, president of the IOC, in 1914, a 109-page brochure was created to promote the idea of Antwerp as a host city for the Olympics, Aurons-nous la VIIème Olympiade à Anvers. It was sent to all IOC members and was used during the 6th Olympic Congress in Paris in 1914, where the candidacies of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Budapest, and Rome were discussed. Despite a slight preference at the time for Budapest, no choice was made. In 1915, Lyon made a bid for the 1920 games, the support for Belgium by cousin country France, then the leading country of the IOC, also meant that Amsterdam, and Budapest, in an enemy state, made no chance for the 1920 games against Antwerp. New candidacies from American cities did not have that disadvantage and bids were received from Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, but shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the IOC decided to give Antwerp the first choice, if they still wanted to host the 1920 Games. An executive committee was established on 17 April 1919, with Henri de Baillet-Latour as chairman and Alfred Verdyck, seven commissions were created, to deal with finances, accommodation, press relations, propaganda, schedules, transport, and festivities. Finances and scheduling proved to be the two hardest parts to tackle, the program of events only was published in February 1920, between 23 and 30 April 1920, an ice hockey tournament marked the early start of the Games. Held in the Palais de Glace or Ice Palace in Antwerp, it was the first time that ice hockey was an Olympic sport. The first stone of the new Olympic Stadium at Beerschot was laid on 4 July 1919 by Jan De Vos, mayor of Antwerp, and inaugurated less than a year later on 23 May 1920 with a gymnastics demonstration. The nautical stadium or Stade Nautique dAntwerp was built at the end of the Jan Van Rijswijcklaan, other events, like shooting, boxing, and equestrian sports, were held at pre-existing locations in and around Antwerp and as far away as Ostend. These Olympics were the first in which the Olympic Oath was voiced, the first in which doves were released to symbolize peace, the USA won 41 gold,27 silver, and 27 bronze medals, the most won by any of the 29 nations attending. Sweden, Great Britain, Finland, and Belgium rounded out the five most successful medal-winning nations, the Games also featured a week of winter sports, with figure skating appearing for the first time since the 1908 Olympics, and ice hockey making its Olympic debut
7.
1924 Summer Olympics
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The 1924 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the VIII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1924 in Paris, France. It was the second time Paris hosted the games, after 1900, the selection process for the 1924 Summer Olympics consisted of six bids, and Paris was selected ahead of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Prague, and Rome. The selection was made at the 20th IOC Session in Lausanne in 1921, the cost of the Games of the VIII Olympiad was estimated to be 10,000, 000₣. With total receipts at 5,496, 610₣, the Olympics resulted in a hefty loss despite crowds that reached 60,000 people at a time. The opening ceremony and several sporting events took place in the Olympic Stadium of Colombes and this VIII Olympiad was the last one organised under the presidency of Pierre de Coubertin. The Flying Finns dominated the distance running, while the British. Paavo Nurmi won the 1500 m and 5,000 m, ville Ritola won the 10,000 m and the 3,000 m steeplechase, while finishing second to Nurmi on the 5,000 m and cross country. Albin Stenroos won the marathon, while the Finnish team was victorious in the 3,000 m, British runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell won the 100 m and 400 m events, respectively. Their stories are depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, in addition, Douglas Lowe won the 800 m competition. The marathon distance was fixed at 42.195 km, from the run at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 m pool with marked lanes, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals in swimming and one bronze in water polo. Harold Osborn won gold medals and set Olympic records in both the high jump and the decathlon at the 1924 Olympics, fencer Roger Ducret of France won five medals, of which three were gold. In gymnastics,24 men scored a perfect 10, twenty-three of them scored it in the now-discontinued event of rope climbing. Albert Seguin scored a 10 here and also a perfect 10 on side vault, unexpectedly, the national team of Uruguay won the gold medal in football. The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius was used for the first time at the Olympics and it had been used before by the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, a French sporting federation whose founding members included Pierre de Coubertin. De Coubertin took the motto from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who had coined during a speech before a Paris youth gathering of 1891 and these were the first Games to feature an Olympic Village. The Art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics were the first time that the Olympic Art competitions were contested seriously, a total of 14 medals were awarded, though none were given in the music category. 126 events in 23 disciplines, comprising 17 sports, were part of the Olympic program in 1924, the number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses
8.
Winter Olympic Games
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The Winter Olympic Games is a major international sporting event that occurs once every four years. Unlike the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics feature sports practised on snow, the first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Winter Olympics, was held in Chamonix, France. The original five sports were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, 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 held every four years. The Winter Games have evolved since its inception, others have been discontinued and later reintroduced, or have been permanently discontinued. Still others, such as speed skiing, bandy and skijoring, were demonstration sports, the rise of television as a global medium for communication enhanced the profile of the Games. It created a stream, via the sale of broadcast rights and advertising. This allowed outside interests, such as companies and corporate sponsors. The IOC has had to address several criticisms, internal scandals, nations have used the Winter Games to showcase the claimed superiority of their political systems. The Winter Olympics has been hosted on three continents by eleven different countries, the Games have been held in the United States four times, in France three times, and in Austria, Canada, Japan, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland twice. Also, the Games have been held in Germany, Yugoslavia, the IOC has selected Pyeongchang, South Korea, to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and Beijing, China, to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Twelve countries – Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States – have sent athletes to every Winter Olympic Games. Six of those – Austria, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States – have earned medals at every Winter Olympic Games, Norway leads in terms of number of gold medals and overall number of medals. Germany and Japan have been banned at times from competing in the Games, the Olympic Charter limits winter sports to those. Which are practised on snow or ice, since 1992 a number of new sports have been added to the Olympic programme, which include short track speed skating, snowboarding, freestyle and moguls skiing. The addition of events has broadened the appeal of the Winter Olympics beyond Europe. While European powers such as Norway and Germany still dominate the traditional Winter Olympic sports, countries such as South Korea, Australia, the results are more parity in the national medal tables, more interest in the Winter Olympics and higher global television ratings. Figure skating events were held at the 1908 and 1920 Summer Olympics. ^ Note 2, a mens ice hockey tournament was held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. ^ Note 3
9.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
10.
Multi-sport event
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A multi-sport event is an organized sports event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports between organized teams of athletes from nation states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of significance is the modern Olympic Games. Many regional multi-sport events have since founded and modeled after the Olympics. Most have the basic structure. Games are held over the course of days in and around a host city. Countries send national teams to each competition, consisting of individual athletes, athletes or teams are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals for first, second and third place respectively. The games are held every four years, though some are annual competitions. Instead, the Greek sports of racing and wrestling, as well as the Etruscan sport of gladiatorial combat. In the late 19th and early 20th century, athletes at events were almost exclusively male. As international womens sport began to develop, events such as the Womens World Games, though short-lived, events such as these led to greater inclusion of women at multi-sport events over the course of the 20th century. Since the establishment of the Olympics, most serial multi-sport events have been organized for specific audiences, after some celebrations, the Olympics became very popular nowadays. The number of sports, initially only a few, is still growing, the Paralympic Games is the largest multi-sport event involving athletes with physical disabilities, and is organised by the International Paralympic Committee. Arranged for the first time in 1960 in Rome, Italy, the number of sports, initially only a few, is still growing. The first Special Olympics International Summer Games were held in Chicago, the most recent Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles, United States, involved 25 sports and approximately 6,500 athletes from 177 countries. At the beginning of the 20th century, another multi-sport event and these Games were held in Scandinavia, and the sports conducted were winter sports such as cross-country skiing and speed skating. The Nordic Games were last held in 1926, after which the 1924 Winter Sports Week in Chamonix was declared the first Olympic Winter Games, in the 1920s, all kinds of other multi-sport events were set up. These were usually directed for a group of athletes, rather than everybody. Regional games were another kind of event that was established, such as the Far Eastern Championship Games
11.
France at the 1924 Winter Olympics
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France was the host nation for the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix. For the first time in modern Olympics history, the host nation did not win a gold medal, Men Team Standings Men Women Pairs The top two teams advanced to the medal round. Events,18 km cross-country skiing normal hill ski jumping The cross-country skiing part of event was combined with the main medal event of cross-country skiing. Those results can be found above in this article in the skiing section. Some athletes entered in both the skiing and Nordic combined event, their time on the 18 km was used for both events. One would expect that athletes competing at the Nordic combined event, would participate in the skiing event as well. This was not always the case due to the number of athletes could represent a country per event. The ski jumping event was held separate from the main event of ski jumping. Men All-round Distances, 500m, 1000m, 5000m &10, 000m
12.
Mont Blanc
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Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco, both meaning White Mountain, is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe west of Russia after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808 m above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence, the mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, the three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France. The latter town was the site of the first Winter Olympics, a cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. The 11.6 km Mont Blanc Tunnel, constructed between 1957 and 1965, runs beneath the mountain and is a major transport route. The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was on 8 August 1786 by Jacques Balmat and this climb, initiated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who gave a reward for the successful ascent, traditionally marks the start of modern mountaineering. The first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis in 1808, nowadays the summit is ascended by an average of 20,000 mountaineer-tourists each year. It could be considered an easy, yet arduous, ascent for someone who is well-trained and acclimatized to the altitude, from lAiguille du Midi, Mont Blanc seems quite close, being 1,000 m higher. Some routes require knowledge of mountaineering, a guide. All routes are long and arduous, involving delicate passages and the hazard of rock-fall or avalanche, climbers may also suffer altitude sickness, occasionally life threatening, particularly if they do not acclimatize to it. Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated, from 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia, the resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification. In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance, in a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix, however, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, a demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defined the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc was located on the border of France, the 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments
13.
Haute-Savoie
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Haute-Savoie is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. To the north is Lake Geneva and Switzerland, to the south and southeast are the Mont Blanc, the French entrance to the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Italy is in Haute-Savoie. It is noted for winter sports, the first Winter Olympic Games were held at Chamonix in 1924, before 1860, the territory occupied by modern Haute-Savoie and the adjoining department of Savoie had been part of the Kingdom of Sardinia since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Annexation of the region by France was formalized in the Treaty of Turin on March 24,1860, from November 1942 to September 1943, Haute-Savoie was subjected to military occupation by Fascist Italy. The Maquis des Glières operated from Haute-Savoie, Haute-Savoie comprises four arrondissements, divided into 294 communes and 17 cantons. Haute-Savoie has the largest range of elevations of all the departments in France, the lowest point is 250 metres in the Rhône River Valley, some of the worlds best-known ski resorts are in Haute-Savoie. Its mountainous terrain makes mountain passes important to trade and economic life, some of the most important are the Col de la Forclaz and the Mont Blanc Tunnel, linking Chamonix to Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley. As of 1996,178,624 hectares of Haute-Savoie is forested, compared to 34.4 percent for the Rhone-Alpes region and 27.1 percent for France as a whole. Of the forested area 141,063 hectares is managed for timber and other forest products, national nature reserves are designated by the French government as areas where an outstanding natural heritage is present in both rare and typical areas in terms of species and geology. Management is charged to local organizations, with direction and evaluation focusing on protection for future generations. Lake Annecy is an attraction, along with the town of Évian-les-Bains, perhaps the best-known town on the French shore of Lake Geneva. Haute-Savoie is entirely within the watershed of the Rhone, there were 4,450 farmers in 1999,4,800 farmers and over 1,700 full-time farm employees at the end of 2006. In 1999, crop production was valued at €71.5 million, dairy production is a large part of the Haute-Savoie economy, earning €117.2 million in 2006 and representing 74 percent of the net animal-product worth. The average expenditure per capita in 2006 was €21,706, with the 2004–2007 rise of the euro, Swiss customer traffic decreased five or six percent. At the end of 2006, traditional small businesses represented 84 percent of businesses and 40 percent of retail space,4,301 companies were established in 2004 in Haute-Savoie, nearly 80 percent in the service sector, with a high percentage offering service to individuals. This accounted for 21.6 percent of new businesses, the most active sectors were real estate, construction, business services and the food industry. In 1999, Haute-Savoie had 2,779 industrial companies producing 13.60 percent of all business income. T, firms engaged in screw-cutting are major employers in the department. While the automotive industry is the client, firms also service the electronics, household-appliance
14.
International Olympic Committee
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The International Olympic Committee is the supreme authority of the worldwide Olympic movement. It is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Lausanne and its mission is enshrined in the Olympic Charter, to support the development of competitive sport by ethical and environmentally sustainable means. The IOC was created by Pierre de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president, today its membership consists of 100 active members,32 honorary members, and 1 honour member. The IOC is the authority of the worldwide modern Olympic movement. The IOC organises the modern Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, held in summer and winter, the first Summer Olympics organised by the IOC was held in Athens, Greece, in 1896, the first Winter Olympics was in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year, the first Summer Youth Olympics were in Singapore in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Olympics were held in Innsbruck in 2012. In 2009, the UN General Assembly granted the IOC Permanent Observer status and this decision enables the IOC to be directly involved in the UN Agenda and to attend UN General Assembly meetings where it can take the floor. This has provided the possibility to promote sport at a new level, during each proclamation at the Olympics, announcers speak in different languages, French is always spoken first followed by an English translation and the dominant language of the host nation. The stated mission of the International Olympic Committee is to promote Olympic throughout the world and it is the IOC’s supreme organ and its decisions are final. Extraordinary Sessions may be convened by the President or upon the written request of at least one third of the members, among others, the powers of the Session are, To adopt or amend the Olympic Charter. To elect the members of the IOC, the Honorary President, to elect the President, the Vice-Presidents and all other members of the IOC Executive Board. To elect the host city of the Olympic Games, the Olympic Laurel is awarded to individuals for promoting education, culture, development, and peace through sport. For most of its existence, the IOC was controlled by members who were selected by other members, countries that had hosted the Games were allowed two members. When named, they did not become the representatives of their countries to the IOC. The membership of IOC members ceases in the circumstances, Resignation. Non re-election, any IOC member ceases to be a member without further formality if they are not re-elected, age limit, any IOC member ceases to be a member at the end of the calendar year during which they reach the age of 80. Failure to attend Sessions or take part in IOC work for two consecutive years. Transfer of domicile or of main center of interests to an other than the country which was theirs at the time of their election
15.
1992 Winter Olympics
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The 1992 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVI Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 8 to 23 February 1992 in Albertville, France. They were the last Winter Olympics to be held the year as the Summer Olympics. Albertville was selected as host in 1986, beating Sofia, Falun, Lillehammer, Cortina dAmpezzo, Anchorage, the games were the third Winter Olympics held in France, after Chamonix in 1924 and Grenoble in 1968, and the fifth Olympics overall in the country. Sixty-four nations with 1,801 athletes participated in the games, Germany participated as a unified team, while five newly independent European countries debuted, as did six warm-weather countries. Short track speed skating, moguls and womens biathlon made their debut as an Olympic sport, the games were the last Winter Games until 2014 to have demonstration sports, consisting of curling, aerials, ski ballet and speed skiing. It was the last Olympics to have a speed skating rink. The games were succeeded by the 1992 Winter Paralympics from 25 March to 1 April, norwegians won every male cross-country skiing race, with Bjørn Dæhlie and Vegard Ulvang both collecting three gold. Ski jumper Toni Nieminen,16, became the youngest male gold medalist of a Winter Olympic event. Petra Kronberger won both the event and the slalom, while Bonnie Blair won both the 500 m and 1000 m speed skating events and Gunda Niemann took both of the longest races. Kim Kihoon earned gold medals in both short track events. Annelise Coberger of New Zealand won the southern hemispheres first Winter Olympic medal—a silver in the womens slalom, Nicolas Bochatay was killed during a training session. Germany won the most medals and the most gold, the vote to select the host city of the 1992 Winter Olympics was conducted on 17 October 1986, in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the 91st IOC Session. A record of seven different locales bid for these Games, the Oxford Olympics Study established the outturn cost of the Albertville 1992 Winter Olympics at USD2.0 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 137% in real terms. This includes sports-related costs only, that is, operational costs incurred by the committee for the purpose of staging the Games. The competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, average cost for Winter Games since 1960 is USD3.1 billion, average cost overrun is 142%. Magique is the Olympic mascot of these Olympics and is a little imp in the shape of a star and it is created by Philippe Mairesse and was presented in 1989. His star shape symbolizes dreams and imagination and his colors come from the French flag, with a red hat and a blue costume. Freestyle skiing event of moguls and short-track speedskating made their debuts as medal disciplines, norwegian skiers won every male cross-country skiing race
16.
1908 Summer Olympics
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The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, England from 27 April to 31 October 1908. These games were scheduled to be held in Rome, but were re-located on financial grounds following a disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906. They were the fourth chronological modern Olympic Games in keeping with the now-accepted four-year cycle as opposed to the proposed Intercalated Games alternate four-year cycle, the IOC president for these Games was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Lasting a total of 187 days, or 6 months and 4 days, the selection process for the 1908 Summer Olympics consisted of four bids, and saw Rome selected ahead of London, Berlin and Milan. The selection was made at the 6th IOC Session in London in 1904, italian authorities were preparing to hold the games when Mount Vesuvius erupted on 7 April 1906, devastating the city of Naples. Funds were diverted to the reconstruction of Naples, so a new venue was required, London was selected for the first time to hold the Games which were held at White City alongside the Franco-British Exhibition, at the time the more noteworthy event. The White City Stadium, built in time for the games. The stadium track was three laps to the mile, not the current standard of 400 metres, with a pool for swimming and diving and platforms for wrestling and gymnastics in the middle. The distance from the start of the Marathon to the finish at the stadium was established at these games. ”As a result of changes, the marathon covered a distance of 26 miles 385 yards. The games were surrounded by controversy, on the opening day, following the practice introduced at the Intercalated Games of 1906, teams paraded behind national flags. The Swedish flag had not been displayed above the stadium, so the members of the Swedish team decided not to part in the ceremony. The flag of the United States had also not been displayed above the stadium before the opening, the United States flag bearer, Ralph Rose, refused to dip the flag to King-Emperor Edward VII in the royal box. However, the flag was dipped in the collective greeting of the royal family. Martin Sheridan, Irish American Athletic Club member and American team captain, is believed to have supported Rose by explaining This flag dips to no earthly king. It is claimed that his statement exemplified both American and Irish defiance of the British monarchy, however, research has shown that this quotation by Sheridan was first reported in 1952, some 24 years after his death. The 1908 Olympics also prompted establishment of rules for sports. One reason was the 400 meter race, in which a US runner was accused of interfering with a British runner, part of the problem was the different definition of interference under British and US rules. The race was re-run, but the Americans refused to participate, the British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, won by running around the track on his own, because three of the four original runners had been American, the only walkover in Olympic history
17.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
18.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
19.
Sonja Henie
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Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion, Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. Henie was born in Kristiania, current Oslo, the daughter of Wilhelm Henie, a prosperous Norwegian furrier. In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henies parents had inherited wealth, Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. Henie initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating, as a girl, Henie was also a nationally ranked tennis player and a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. Once Henie began serious training as a skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina, Henie won her first major competition, the senior Norwegian championships, at the age of 10. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, during the 1924 program, she skated over to the side of the rink several times to ask her coach for directions, but by the next Olympiad, she needed no such assistance. Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen, Henie went on to win first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year. She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and she also won six consecutive European championships from 1931 to 1936. Henies unprecedented three Olympic gold medals havent been matched by any ladies single skater since, neither are her achievements as ten-time consecutive World Champion, towards the end of her career, she began to be strongly challenged by younger skaters including Cecilia Colledge, Megan Taylor and Hedy Stenuf. Indeed, after the school section at the 1936 Olympic competition, Colledge. The draw for the free skating came under suspicion after Henie landed the position of skating last. The early start was seen as a disadvantage, with the not yet whipped into a clapping frenzy. Years later, a fairer, staggered draw was adopted to counteract this situation, during her competitive career, Henie traveled widely and worked with a variety of foreign coaches. At home in Oslo, she trained at Frogner Stadium, where her coaches included Hjørdis Olsen, during the latter part of her competitive career she was coached primarily by the American Howard Nicholson in London. In addition to traveling to train and compete, she was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. Henie became so popular with the public that police had to be called out for control on her appearances in various disparate cities such as Prague
20.
Toronto Granites
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The Toronto Granites were an amateur senior ice hockey team from Toronto, Ontario. The Granites were Allan Cup champions in 1922 and 1923 and they were chosen to represent Canada at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. The Granites won the second consecutive Olympic gold medal for the Canada national mens ice hockey team, formed in the 1880s, the Granites were the first organized ice hockey team in Toronto. The ice hockey team was an offshoot of the Toronto Granite Curling Club, the team joined the Ontario Hockey Association for the 1890–91 season. The team would play in the OHA until 1924, adding a club in 1893
21.
Pierre de Coubertin
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Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin was a French educator and historian, and founder of the International Olympic Committee. He is considered the father of the modern Olympic Games, born into a French aristocratic family, he became an academic and studied a broad range of topics, most notably education and history. The Pierre de Coubertin medal is a given by the International Olympic Committee to athletes that demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship in the Olympic Games. Pierre de Frédy was born in Paris on 1 January 1863 into an aristocratic family and he was the fourth child of Baron Charles Louis de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin and Marie–Marcelle Gigault de Crisenoy. His paintings often centred on themes related to the Roman Catholic Church, classicism, and nobility and his memoirs elaborated further, describing as a pivotal moment his disappointment upon meeting Henri, Count of Chambord, whom the elder Coubertin believed to be the rightful king. But while these events were the setting of his childhood, his experiences were just as formative. This suggests that despite his rebelliousness at home, Coubertin adapted well to the rigors of a Jesuit education. As an aristocrat, Coubertin had a number of paths from which to choose. But he chose instead to pursue a career as an intellectual, studying and later writing on a range of topics, including education, history, literature. The subject which he seems to have been most deeply interested in was education, and his study focused in particular on physical education, in 1883, he visited England for the first time, and studied the program of physical education instituted by Thomas Arnold at the Rugby School. Coubertin credited these methods with leading to the expansion of British power during the 19th century, the inclusion of physical education in the curriculum of French schools would become an ongoing pursuit and passion of Coubertins. In fact, Coubertin is thought to have exaggerated the importance of sport to Thomas Arnold, nonetheless, Coubertin was an enthusiast in need of a cause and he found it in England and in Thomas Arnold. Thomas Arnold, the leader and classic model of English educators, wrote Coubertin, playing fields sprang up all over England. Intrigued by what he had read about English public schools, in 1883, at the age of twenty, Fredy went to Rugby and he described the results in a book, LEducation en Angleterre, which was published in Paris in 1888. This hero of his book is Thomas Arnold, and on his visit in 1886. What Coubertin saw on the fields of Rugby and the other English schools he visited was how “organised sport can create moral and social strength”. Not only did organised games help to set the mind and body in equilibrium, First developed by the ancient Greeks, it was an approach to education that he felt the rest of the world had forgotten and to whose revival he was to dedicate the rest of his life. As a historian and a thinker on education, Coubertin romanticised ancient Greece, Coubertin advocated for these concepts, this triple unity, to be incorporated into schools
22.
Mountaineering
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The term mountaineering describes the sport of mountain climbing, including ski mountaineering. Hiking in the mountains can also be a form of mountaineering when it involves scrambling, or short stretches of the more basic grades of rock climbing. All require experience, athletic ability, and technical knowledge to maintain safety, mountaineering is often called Alpinism, especially in European languages, which implies climbing with difficulty such high and often snow and ice-covered mountains as the Alps. A mountaineer with such great skill is called an Alpinist, historically, many cultures have harbored superstitions about mountains, which they often regarded as sacred due to their proximity with heaven, such as Mount Olympus for the Ancient Greeks. In 1492 Antoine de Ville, lord of Domjulien and Beaupré, was the first to ascend the Mont Aiguille, in France, with a team, using ladders. It appears to be the first recorded climb of any technical difficulty, in 1573 Francesco De Marchi and Francesco Di Domenico ascended Corno Grande, the highest peak in the Apennine Mountains. During the Enlightenment, as a product of the new spirit of curiosity for the natural world, in 1741 Richard Pococke and William Windham made a historic visit to Chamonix. By the early 19th century many of the peaks were reached, including the Grossglockner in 1800, the Ortler in 1804, the Jungfrau in 1811, the Finsteraarhorn in 1812. In 1808 Marie Paradis became the first female to climb Mont Blanc and this inaugurated what became known as the Golden age of alpinism, with the first mountaineering club - the Alpine Club - being founded in 1857. Well-known guides of the era include Christian Almer, Jakob Anderegg, Melchior Anderegg, J. J. Bennen, Michel Croz, in the early years of the golden age, scientific pursuits were intermixed with the sport, such as by the physicist John Tyndall. In the later years, it shifted to a more competitive orientation as pure sportsmen came to dominate the London-based Alpine Club and this ascent is generally regarded as marking the end of the mountaineering golden age. By this point the sport of mountaineering had largely reached its modern form, with a body of professional guides, equipment, mountaineering in the Americas became popular in the 1800s. In North America, Pikes Peak in the Colorado Rockies was first climbed by Edwin James, though lower than Pikes Peak, the heavily glaciated Fremont Peak in Wyoming was thought to be the tallest mountain in the Rockies when it was first climbed by John C. Frémont and two others in 1842, pico de Orizaba, the tallest peak in Mexico and third tallest in North America, was first climbed by U. S. military personnel which included William F. Raynolds and a half dozen other climbers in 1848. Heavily glaciated and more technical climbs in North American were not achieved until the late 19th, in 1897 Mount Saint Elias on the Alaska-Yukon border was summitted by the Duke of the Abruzzi and party. But it was not until 1913 that Mount Mckinley, the tallest peak in North America was successfully climbed by Hudson Stuck, Mount Logan, the tallest peak in Canada was first summitted by a half dozen climbers in 1925 in an expedition that took more than two months. In 1879-1880 the exploration of the highest Andes in South America began when English mountaineer Edward Whymper climbed Chimborazo, the summit of Aconcagua was finally reached on January 14,1897 by Swiss mountaineer Matthias Zurbriggen during an expedition led by Edward FitzGerald that began in December 1896. The Andes of Bolivia were first explored by Sir William Martin Conway in 1898 and it took until the late 19th century for European explorers to penetrate Africa
23.
Charles Granville Bruce
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Brigadier-General The Honourable Charles Granville Bruce, CB, MVO was a Himalayan veteran and leader of the second and third British expeditions to Mount Everest in 1922 and 1924. Charles Granville Bruce was the youngest of the fourteen children of Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare and his father was born at Duffryn, Aberdare, attended Swansea Grammar School, and trained as a barrister. In the 1830s, coal was discovered beneath the familys land, Henry Bruce was stipendiary magistrate for Merthyr Tydfil,1847 to 1854, Liberal member of parliament for Merthyr Tydfil,1852 to 1869, and Home Secretary in Gladstones government,1868 to 1873. He was created first Baron Aberdare, of Duffryn, in 1873 and his mother was youngest daughter of General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier. Bruce was educated at Harrow and Repton and his early life alternated between the pompous formality of Queens Gate, London, the family home in Aberdare, and a Scottish estate. In Wales, his mentor was a farmer and inn-keeper. He taught the young Bruce how to hunt, find his way around the local hills, one of Bruce’s most notable achievements was running down a “rough crew” of local poachers. Half a century later he was proud to list their names in his memoirs, Bill the Butcher, Shoni Kick-O-Top, Billie Blaen Llechau, Bruce and the local game-keepers chased one poacher to the narrow alleyways and courts of Georgetown. The poacher was only caught when a furious husband found him snoring in his wife’s bed, the gang were duly punished, but gained revenge by returning to Bruce’s house and stealing all the weapons from his father’s gun-room. After leaving school, Bruce entered military college and he had huge physical strength, was an enthusiastic boxer and 300 yard runner, and in the 1880s represented England against France in an international running meeting. As a young lieutenant he was posted to Abbotabad, a British hill station in the Panjab, Bruce had an akhara dug near his residence, where he practised on most days. Both the British and the Rajahs wagered thousands of rupees on professional wrestling matches, in the 1910s, Bruce was patron of the wrestler Rahim Sulaniwala, who went on to become a renowned champion. Bruce took a special interest in his Gurkha soldiers and became fluent in Nepali and he introduced hill racing to his Gurkha regiment and in 1891 took his champion runner Pabir Thapa to Zermatt, in Switzerland, to learn ice-climbing. On the way there, the two stayed at Aberdare, where Thapa enjoyed “running down” poachers, despite his poor English, he was very popular with the locals. He disappeared for the last three days of his visit and was living it up with some coal miners in Tonypandy. Bruce went on to train the Gurkhas in mountain-warfare, in 1897 he equipped his troops on the Northern Frontier with shorts, and is widely credited with their introduction to the British Army. He spent ten climbing seasons in the European Alps and took part in three of the earliest climbing expeditions to the Himalaya. In 1892, with a troop of Gurkha soldiers he accompanied Conway in his exploration of the Baltoro region of the Karakorum, visiting Muztagh Tower, Broad Peak, in 1893 he was with Francis Younghusband on a mission to the Hindu Kush to bestow recognition on Nizam-uk-Mulk as Mehtar
24.
Mount Everest
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Mount Everest, also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in China as Chomolungma/珠穆朗玛峰, is Earths highest mountain. Its peak is 8,848 metres above sea level, Mount Everest is in the Mahalangur Range. The international border between China and Nepal runs across Everests summit point and its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse,8,516 m, Nuptse,7,855 m, and Changtse,7,580 m. In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 8,840 m. The current official height of 8,848 m as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey, in 2005, China remeasured the height of the mountain and got a result of 8844.43 m. An argument regarding the height between China and Nepal lasted five years from 2005 to 2010, China argued it should be measured by its rock height which is 8,844 m but Nepal said it should be measured by its snow height 8,848 m. In 2010, an agreement was reached by both sides that the height of Everest is 8,848 m and Nepal recognises Chinas claim that the rock height of Everest is 8,844 m. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal and the other from the north in Tibet, as of 2016 there are well over 200 corpses on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks. The first recorded efforts to reach Everests summit were made by British mountaineers, with Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. Tragedy struck on the descent from the North Col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition, the Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the north ridge on 25 May 1960. In 1802, the British began the Great Trigonometric Survey of India to fix the locations, heights, starting in southern India, the survey teams moved northward using giant theodolites, each weighing 500 kg and requiring 12 men to carry, to measure heights as accurately as possible. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s, but Nepal was unwilling to allow the British to enter the country due to suspicions of political aggression, several requests by the surveyors to enter Nepal were turned down. The British were forced to continue their observations from Terai, a region south of Nepal which is parallel to the Himalayas, conditions in Terai were difficult because of torrential rains and malaria. Three survey officers died from malaria while two others had to retire because of failing health, nonetheless, in 1847, the British continued the survey and began detailed observations of the Himalayan peaks from observation stations up to 240 km distant
25.
Gold medals
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A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture, others offer only the prestige of the award. Many organizations now award gold medals either annually or extraordinarily, including UNESCO, while some gold medals are solid gold, others are gold-plated or silver-gilt, like those of the Olympic Games, the Lorentz Medal, the United States Congressional Gold Medal and the Nobel Prize medal. Nobel Prize medals consist of 18 karat green gold plated with 24 karat gold, before 1980 they were struck in 23 karat gold. In the United States, Congress would enact a resolution asking the President to reward those responsible, the commanding officer would receive a gold medal and his officers silver medals. Other countries similarly honored their military and naval victors in a similar fashion, Medals have historically been given as prizes in various types of competitive activities, especially athletics. Traditionally, medals are made of the metals, Gold Silver Bronze Occasionally. This standard was adopted for Olympic competition at the 1904 Summer Olympics, at the 1896 event, silver was awarded to winners and bronze to runners-up, while at 1904 other prizes were given, not medals. At the modern Olympic Games, winners of a sporting discipline receive a medal in recognition of their achievement. At the Ancient Olympic Games only one winner per event was crowned with kotinos, aristophanes in Plutus makes a remark why victorious athletes are crowned with wreath made of wild olive instead of gold. When Tigranes, an Armenian general learned this, he uttered to his leader, what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight. Men who do not compete for possessions, but for honour, hence medals were not awarded at the ancient Olympic Games. At the 1896 Summer Olympics, winners received a silver medal, in 1900, most winners received cups or trophies instead of medals. The next three Olympics awarded the winners solid gold medals, but the medals themselves were smaller, the use of gold rapidly declined with the onset of the First World War and also with the onset of the Second World War. The last series of Olympic medals to be made of gold were awarded at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. Olympic Gold medals are required to be made from at least 92. 5% silver, all Olympic medals must be at least 60mm in diameter and 3mm thick. Minting the medals is the responsibility of the Olympic host, from the 1972 Summer Olympics through 2000, Cassiolis design remained on the obverse with a custom design by the host city on the reverse. Noting that Cassiolis design showed a Roman amphitheater for what originally were Greek games, Winter Olympics medals have been of more varied design
26.
St. Moritz
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St. Moritz is a high Alpine luxury resort in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about 1,800 metres above sea level. It is Upper Engadines major village and a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. St. Moritz lies on the slopes of the Albula Alps below the Piz Nair overlooking the flat and wide glaciated valley of the Upper Engadine and eponymous lake. It hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, St. Moritz is a popular destination for the upper class and international jetset. It has one of the most expensive ski resorts in the world | along with many luxurious five star hotels, votive offerings, swords, and needles from the Bronze Age found at the base of the springs in St. Moritz indicate that the Celts had already discovered them. St. Moritz is first mentioned around 1137–39 as ad sanctum Mauricium, the village was named after Saint Maurice, an early Christian saint from southern Egypt said to have been martyred in 3rd century Roman Switzerland while serving as leader of the Theban Legion. Pilgrims traveled to Saint Mauritius often to the church of the springs, in 1519, the Medici pope, Leo X, promised full absolution to anyone making a pilgrimage to the church of the springs. In the 16th century, the first scientific treatises about the St. Moritz mineral springs were written, in 1535, Paracelsus, the great practitioner of nature cures, spent some time in St. Moritz. Although it received some visitors during the summer, the origins of the winter resort only date back 152 years ago to September 1864, when St. If they were to find St. Moritz attractive in winter and this marked not only the start of winter tourism in St. Moritz but the start of winter tourism in the whole of the Alps. The first tourist office in Switzerland was established the year in the village. The first European Ice-Skating Championships were held at St. Moritz in 1882, the first bob run and bob race was held in 1890. By 1896, St. Moritz became the first village in the Alps to install electric trams, a horse race was held on snow in 1906, and on the frozen lake the following year. The first ski school in Switzerland was established in St. Moritz in 1929, St. Moritz hosted the 1928 Winter Olympics, the stadium still stands today, and again in 1948. It has hosted over 20 FIBT World Championships, three FIS Alpine World Ski Championships and over 40 Engadin Skimarathons since 1969. It has also hosted other events since, including some unlikely ones on the frozen lake in the 1970s and 1980s such as a golf tournament. St. Moritz has also been the venue for many Sailing and Windsurfing World Championships, since the early 1980s St. Moritz is also promoted and known as Top of the World. The expression was registered as a trademark by the tourist office in 1987, between 9–12 June 2011, St. St. Moritz had an area, of 28.69 km2
27.
1976 Summer Olympics
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The 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, officially called the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event in Montreal, Quebec, in 1976, and the first Olympic Games held in Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12,1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and it is so far the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada. Calgary and Vancouver later hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1988 and 2010, the vote occurred on May 12,1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Los Angeles was eliminated after the first round and Montreal won in the second round, Moscow would go on to host the 1980 Summer Olympics and Los Angeles the 1984 Summer Olympics. One blank vote was cast in the second and final round, toronto had made its third attempt for the Olympics but failed to get the support of the Canadian Olympic Committee, which selected Montreal instead. Robert Bourassa, then the Premier of Quebec, first asked Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to advise Canadas monarch, Elizabeth II, however, Bourassa later became unsettled about how unpopular the move might be with sovereigntists in the province, annoying Trudeau, who had already made arrangements. The Oxford Olympics Study estimates the outturn cost of the Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics at USD6.1 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 720% in real terms. This includes sports-related costs only, that is, operational costs incurred by the committee for the purpose of staging the Games. The competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, the cost overrun for Montreal 1976 is the highest cost overrun on record for any Olympics. The cost and cost overrun for Montreal 1976 compares with costs of USD4.6 billion, average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is USD5.2 billion, average cost overrun is 176%. The ceremony marked the opening of the Games of the XXI Olympiad, the queen entered the Royal Box with her consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and her son, Prince Andrew. The parade of athletes began moments later with the arrival of the Greek team, All other teams entered the stadium according to French alphabetical order. Although most would eventually boycott the Games in the days to follow, much of the music performed for the parade was arranged by Vic Vogel and was inspired by late Quebec composer, André Mathieu. Immediately following the parade, a troupe of 80 women dancers dressed in white performed a dance in the outline of the Olympic rings. Following that came the official speeches, first by Roger Rousseau, head of the Montreal Olympic organizing committee and her Majesty was then invited to proclaim the Games open, which she did, first in French, then in English. Accompanied by the Olympic Hymn, the Olympic flag was carried into the stadium, the flag was carried by eight men and hoisted by four women, representing the ten provinces and two territories of Canada. As the flag was hoisted, a choir performed an a cappella version of the Olympic Hymn. Once the flag was unfurled, a troupe of Bavarian dancers, representing Munich, host of the previous 1972 Summer Olympics, following a brief dance, that flag was then passed from the Mayor of Munich to the IOC President and then to the Mayor of Montreal
28.
Montreal
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Montreal, officially Montréal, is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the 2nd-most populous in Canada as a whole. Originally called Ville-Marie, or City of Mary, it is believed to be named after Mount Royal, the city has a distinct four-season continental climate, with warm-to-hot summers and cold, snowy winters. In 2016, Montreal had a population of 1,704,694, Montreals metropolitan area had a population of 4,098,927 and a population of 1,958,257 in the urban agglomeration, with all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included. Legally a French-speaking city,60. 5% of Montrealers speak French at home,21. 2% speak English and 19. 8% speak neither, Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with 56% of the population able to speak both official languages. Montreal is the second-largest primarily French-speaking city in the world after Paris, historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population and economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s. It remains an important centre of commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, education, culture, tourism, gaming, film, Montreal was also named a UNESCO City of Design. In 2009, Montreal was named North Americas leading host city for international events, according to the 2009 preliminary rankings of the International Congress. According to the 2015 Global Liveability Ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit, in the 2017 edition of their Best Student Cities ranking, Quacquarelli Symonds ranked Montreal as the worlds best city to study abroad. Also, Montreal has 11 universities with 170,000 students enrolled, the Greater Montréal region has the highest number of university students per capita among all metropolitan areas in North America. It is the only Canadian city to have held the Summer Olympics, currently, the city hosts the Canadian Grand Prix of Formula One, the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs festival. In 2012, Montreal was ranked as a Beta+ world city, in Kanien’kéha, or Mohawk language, the island is called Tiohtià, ke Tsi or Ka-wé-no-te. In Anishinaabemowin, or Ojibwe language, the land is called Mooniyaang, though the city was first named by French colonizers Ville Marie, or City of Mary, its current name comes from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The most popular theory is that the name derives from Mont Réal, Cartiers 1535 diary entry, naming the mountain, according to the Commission de toponymie du Québec and the Geographical Names Board of Canada, Canadian place names have only one official form. Thus, Montreal is officially spelled with an accent over the e in both English and French. In practice, this is limited to governmental uses. English-speaking Montrealers, including English-language media, regularly omit the accent when writing in English, archaeological evidence demonstrates that First Nations native people occupied the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago. By the year AD1000, they had started to cultivate maize, within a few hundred years, they had built fortified villages. Archeologists have found evidence of their habitation there and at locations in the valley since at least the 14th century
29.
1988 Winter Olympics
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The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games, was a Winter Olympics multi-sport event celebrated in and around Calgary, Alberta, Canada between February 13 and 28,1988. The host city was selected in 1981 over Falun, Sweden and Cortina dAmpezzo, most events took place in Calgary while several skiing events were held in the mountain resorts of Nakiska and Canmore, west of the city. A then-record 57 nations competed and 1,423 athletes participated, the Soviet Union won the most medals with 29, followed by East Germany with 25. As it had in Montreal in 1976, Canada again failed to win a medal in an official medal event as the host nation. Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen and Dutch speed skater Yvonne van Gennip were individual medal leaders, the bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics was Canadas seventh attempt at hosting a winter games and Calgarys fourth. Previous bids representing Montreal and Vancouver bookended failed attempts by the Calgary Olympic Development Association to host the 1964,1968 and 1972 games. The CODA became dormant in 1966 after losing its bid for the 1972 Olympics, Calgary earned the right to bid on behalf of Canada by the Canadian Olympic Association, defeating a rival challenge from a group representing Vancouver. The defeated organizing group lamented that they lost to Calgarys big-ticket games, the CODA then spent two years building local support for the project, selling memberships to 80,000 of the citys 600,000 residents. The city was one of three finalists, opposed by the Swedish community of Falun and Cortina dAmpezzo, the Italian town that hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics. The vote was held September 30,1981, at Baden-Baden, West Germany, during the 84th IOC Session, after Cortina dAmpezzo was eliminated in the first round of balloting, Calgary won the right to host the games over Falun by a 48–31 vote. The announcement of the CODAs victory sent delegates in Baden-Baden and residents of Calgary into celebration and it was the first Winter Olympics awarded to Canada, and the second games overall, following the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. McMahon Stadium, Calgarys primary outdoor facility, was the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies, the first time in 28 years that the venue hosted both events. Three other existing venues served as secondary facilities, The Max Bell Centre hosted the events of curling. The Father David Bauer Olympic Arena hosted some ice hockey matches, as did the Stampede Corral, the Games five primary venues were all purpose-built however, at significant cost. The Olympic Saddledome was the venue for ice hockey and figure skating. Located at Stampede Park, the facility was expected to cost $83 million, the Olympic Oval was built on the campus of the University of Calgary. It was the first fully enclosed 400-metre speed skating venue in the world as it was necessary to protect against the possibility of either bitter cold temperatures or ice-melting chinook winds. Seven world and three Olympic records were broken during the Games, resulting in the facility earning praise as the fastest ice on Earth, Canada Olympic Park was built on the western outskirts of Calgary and hosted bobsled, luge, ski jumping and freestyle skiing
30.
Calgary
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Calgary is a city in the Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, the city anchors the south end of what Statistics Canada defines as the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The city had a population of 1,239,220 in 2016, making it Albertas largest city, also in 2016, Calgary had a metropolitan population of 1,392,609, making it the fourth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada. The Calgary CMA is home to the second-highest number of head offices in Canada among the countrys 800 largest corporations. In 1988, Calgary became the first Canadian city to host the Winter Olympic Games, Calgary was named after Calgary on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. In turn, the name originates from a compound of kald and gart, similar Old Norse words, meaning cold and garden, alternatively, the name might be Gaelic Cala ghearraidh, meaning beach of the meadow, or Gaelic for either clear running water or bay farm. The Calgary area was inhabited by people whose presence has been traced back at least 11,000 years. Before the arrival of Europeans, the area was inhabited by the Blackfoot, Blood, Peigan, in 1787, cartographer David Thompson spent the winter with a band of Peigan encamped along the Bow River. He was a Hudsons Bay Company trader and the first recorded European to visit the area, John Glenn was the first documented European settler in the Calgary area, in 1873. The site became a post of the North-West Mounted Police, the NWMP detachment was assigned in 1875 to protect the western plains from US whisky traders, and to protect the fur trade. Originally named Fort Brisebois, after NWMP officer Éphrem-A, Brisebois, it was renamed Fort Calgary in 1876 by Colonel James Macleod. When the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the area in 1883, over a century later, the Canadian Pacific Railway headquarters moved to Calgary from Montreal in 1996. Calgary was officially incorporated as a town in 1884, and elected its first mayor, in 1894, it was incorporated as The City of Calgary in what was then the North-West Territories. The Calgary Police Service was established in 1885 and assumed municipal, local duties from the NWMP, the Calgary Fire of 1886 occurred on November 7,1886. Fourteen buildings were destroyed with losses estimated at $103,200, although no one was killed or injured, city officials drafted a law requiring all large downtown buildings to be built with Paskapoo sandstone, to prevent this from happening again. After the arrival of the railway, the Dominion Government started leasing grazing land at minimal cost, as a result of this policy, large ranching operations were established in the outlying country near Calgary. Already a transportation and distribution hub, Calgary quickly became the centre of Canadas cattle marketing and meatpacking industries. By the late 19th century, the Hudsons Bay Company expanded into the interior and established posts along rivers that later developed into the cities of Winnipeg, Calgary
31.
Yugoslavia
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Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. The Serbian royal House of Karađorđević became the Yugoslav royal dynasty, Yugoslavia gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris. The country was named after the South Slavic peoples and constituted their first union, following centuries in which the territories had been part of the Ottoman Empire, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929, it was invaded by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance, in 1944, the king recognised it as the legitimate government, but in November 1945 the monarchy was abolished. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 and it acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country as president until his death in 1980, in 1963, the country was renamed again as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The constituent six socialist republics that made up the country were the SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR Serbia, and SR Slovenia. Serbia contained two Socialist Autonomous Provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, which after 1974 were largely equal to the members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics borders, at first into five countries, eventually, Serbia and Montenegro accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession. Serbia and Montenegro themselves broke up in 2006 and became independent states, the concept of Yugoslavia, as a single state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug, Yugoslavia was the result of the Corfu Declaration, as a project of the Serbian Parliament in exile and the Serbian royal Karađorđević dynasty, who became the Yugoslav royal dynasty. The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and it was commonly referred to at the time as the Versailles state. Later, the government renamed the country leading to the first official use of Yugoslavia in 1929, on 6 January 1929 King Alexander I suspended the constitution, banned national political parties, assumed executive power and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions and he imposed a new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I, Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavias historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas, the banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance, the effect of Alexanders dictatorship was to further alienate the non-Serbs from the idea of unity. During his reign the flags of Yugoslav nations were banned, Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul
32.
1984 Winter Olympics
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The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which took place from 8–19 February 1984 in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. Other candidate cities were Sapporo, Japan, and Gothenburg, Sweden and it was the first Winter Olympics held in a Communist state. It was also the second Olympics overall, as well as the second consecutive Olympics, to be held in a Communist nation after the 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Moscow, All of these have been in China. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, numerous newspapers drew attention to the venues of the Sarajevo Olympic games from 30 years prior. The host city for the XIV Winter Olympics was announced on 18 May 1978 during an 80th session of the International Olympic Committee in Athens, Sarajevo was selected over Sapporo, Japan by a margin of three votes. Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was part of the united Yugoslavia at the time, the torch relay for the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic games started in Olympia and then proceeded by airplane to Dubrovnik. The total distance of the relay through Yugoslavia was 5,289 kilometres. There were two main routes – one in the west and the other in the east, the final torchbearer, from a total of 1600, was figure skater Sanda Dubravčić, who received the torch from skier runner Ivo Čarman. Today one of the two original torches is in Slovenia in a collection in Žalec, Slovenia. The Olympic flag was raised upside down during the ceremony by mistake. First Games under the presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the 20 kilometre race was added to womens Nordic skiing. Skier Jure Franko won Yugoslavias first Winter Olympic medal, a silver in the giant slalom, marja-Liisa Hämäläinen won all three individual cross-country races for women. Gaétan Boucher and Karin Enke each won two medals in speed skating, while East German women won all but three out of the twelve medals in the sport. Austria, usually a formidable winter sports nation, won one bronze medal. Biathlete Eirik Kvalfoss earned a complete set of medals, twin brothers Phil and Steve Mahre took first and second place in the slalom. Torvill and Dean of Great Britain earned across-the-board perfect scores for artistic impression in the free dance ice dancing competition, the gold medals for Figure Skating were split among four nations. Disabled skiing was a sport for the first time. Bill Johnson became the first American to win an Olympic downhill event, lamine Guèye of Senegal was the first Black African skier to compete in the Winter Olympics
33.
Sarajevo
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Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its current administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton and East Sarajevo is home to 688,384 inhabitants, nestled within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Due to its long and rich history of religious and cultural variety and it is the only major European city to have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox church and synagogue within the same neighbourhood. Although settlement in the area back to prehistoric times, the modern city arose as an Ottoman stronghold in the 15th century. Sarajevo has attracted international attention several times throughout its history, in 1885, Sarajevo was the first city in Europe and the second city in the world to have a full-time electric tram network running through the city, following San Francisco. For nearly four years, from 1992 to 1996, the city suffered the longest siege of a city in the history of warfare during the Bosnian War. Sarajevo has been undergoing reconstruction, and is the fastest growing city in Bosnia. The travel guide series, Lonely Planet, has named Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world, in 2011, Sarajevo was nominated to be the European Capital of Culture in 2014 and will be hosting the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2019. The earliest known name for the large central Bosnian region of todays Sarajevo is Vrhbosna, Sarajevo is a slavicized word based on saray, the Turkish word for palace. The evo portion may come from the term saray ovası first recorded in 1455, the first mention of name Sarajevo was in 1507 letter written by Feriz Beg. The earliest is Šeher, which is the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to build and it is a Turkish word meaning an advanced city of key importance which in turn comes from Persian, شهر shahr. As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, the most popular of these was European Jerusalem. Some argue that a correct translation of saray is government office or house. Saray is a word in Turkish for a palace or mansion. Sarajevo is located near the center of the triangular-shaped Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is situated 518 meters above sea level and lies in the Sarajevo valley, the valley itself once formed a vast expanse of greenery, but gave way to urban expansion and development in the post-World War II era. The city is surrounded by forested hills and five major mountains. The last four are known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo
34.
Ski jumping at the 1924 Winter Olympics
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At the 1924 Winter Olympics, one individual ski jumping event was contested. It was held on Monday 4 February 1924, the event was unusual, as the bronze medallist was not properly rewarded until 50 years later. Originally, Thorleif Haug was awarded third place, but an error had been made. Upon its 1974 discovery, the medal was awarded to Anders Haugen of the United States and this competition took place at Le Mont with a K-point of 71 meters. The winner of the competition Jacob Tullin Thams also won a medal in sailing at the 1936 Summer Olympics
35.
Curling
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Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules and shuffleboard, two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends and this gives curling its nickname of chess on ice. Curling was invented in medieval Scotland, with the first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in February 1541. Evidence that curling existed in Scotland in the early 16th century includes a stone inscribed with the date 1511 uncovered when an old pond was drained at Dunblane. Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been constituted in 1716. Kilsyth also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond in the world at Colzium, the word curling first appears in print in 1620 in Perth, Scotland, in the preface and the verses of a poem by Henry Adamson. The game was known as the roaring game because of the sound the stones make while traveling over the pebble. The verbal noun curling is formed from the Scots verb curl, in the early history of curling, the playing stones were simply flat-bottomed river stones, which were of inconsistent size, shape and smoothness. Unlike today, the thrower had little control over the curl or velocity and relied more on luck than on precision, skill and strategy. In Darvel, East Ayrshire, the weavers relaxed by playing curling matches using the heavy weights from the looms warp beams. Many a wife would keep her husbands brass curling stone handle on the mantelpiece, central Canadian curlers often used irons rather than stones until the early 1900s, Canada is the only country known to have done so, while others experimented with wood or ice-filled tins. Outdoor curling was very popular in Scotland between the 16th and 19th centuries because the climate provided good ice conditions every winter, today, the game is most firmly established in Canada, having been taken there by Scottish emigrants. The Royal Montreal Curling Club, the oldest established sports club still active in North America, was established in 1807. The first curling club in the United States was established in 1830, today, curling is played all over Europe and has spread to Brazil, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Korea. The first world championship for curling was limited to men and was known as the Scotch Cup, held in Falkirk and Edinburgh, Scotland, the first world title was won by the Canadian team from Regina, Saskatchewan, skipped by Ernie Richardson. Curling was one of the first sports that were popular with women, Curling has been an official sport in the Winter Olympic Games since the 1998 Winter Olympics. It currently includes mens and womens tournaments, a mixed doubles Olympic event was considered but rejected for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games
36.
The Herald (Glasgow)
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The Herald is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. The Herald is the longest running newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The newspaper was founded by an Edinburgh-born printer called John Mennons in January 1783 as a publication called the Glasgow Advertiser. Mennons first edition had a scoop, news of the treaties of Versailles. War had ended with the American colonies, he revealed, the Herald, therefore, is as old as the United States of America, give or take an hour or two. The story was, however, only carried on the back page, Mennons, using the larger of two fonts available to him, put it in the space reserved for late news. In 1802, Mennons sold the newspaper to Benjamin Mathie and Dr James McNayr, former owner of the Glasgow Courier, along with the Mercury, was one of two papers Mennons had come to Glasgow to challenge. Mennons son Thomas retained an interest in the company, the new owners changed the name to The Herald and Advertiser and Commercial Chronicle in 1803. In 1805 the name changed again, time to The Glasgow Herald when Thomas Mennons severed his ties to the paper, from 1836 to 1964 The Herald was owned by George Outram & Co. becoming the first daily newspaper in Scotland in 1858. The company took its name from the editor of 19 years, George Outram. Outram was an early Scottish nationalist, a member of the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, any man calling himself a Scotsman should enrol in the National Association, said The Herald. In 1895, the moved to a building in Mitchell Street designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In 1980, the moved to offices in Albion Street in Glasgow into the former Scottish Daily Express building. It is now based at in a building in Renfield Street. One of the most traumatic episodes in the history of The Herald was the battle for control, millionaires Hugh Fraser and Roy Thomson, whose newspaper empire included The Heralds archrival, The Scotsman, fought for control of the title for 52 days. Sir Hugh Fraser was to win, the papers then editor James Holburn was a disapproving onlooker The Labour Party condemned the battle as big business at its worst. The newspaper changed its name to The Herald on 3 February 1992, dropping Glasgow from its title and that same year the title was bought by Caledonia Newspaper Publishing & Glasgow. In 1996 was purchased by Scottish Television, as of 2013 the newspaper along with its related publications, the Evening Times and Sunday Herald, were owned by the Newsquest media group
37.
Bobsleigh
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Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of two or four teammates make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled. The timed runs are combined to calculate the final score, all three types were adapted from boys delivery sleds and toboggans. Competition naturally followed, and to protect the class and rich visitors in the streets and byways of St Moritz. It has hosted the sport during two Olympics and is still in use today, International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, also known as FIBT from the French Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing. National competitions are governed by bodies such as the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. Although sledding on snow or ice had been popular in northern countries. It developed from two crestas attached together with a board and with a steering mechanism attached to the front cresta, the name of the sport appeared when competitors adopted the technique of bobbing back and forth inside the sled to increase its speed. This had both short- and long-term outcomes, in the term the guests began to scheme about and invent steering means for the sleds, which became the luge, bobsleighs. Long term, after a couple of years of happy pedestrian peril. Still in operation as of 2014, this has served as a host track during two Winter Olympics, as one of the few natural weather tracks in the world, it does not use artificial refrigeration. The first informal races took place on snow-covered roads, formal competitions started in 1884 at St. Moritz. Its not known how much the original track evolved in the years as the three sports matured and stabilized. The first club formed in 1897, and the first purpose-built track solely for bobsleds opened in 1902 outside of St Moritz, over the years, bobsleigh tracks evolved from straight runs to twisting and turning tracks. The original wooden sleds gave way to streamlined fiberglass and metal ones, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation was founded in 1923. Mens four-man bobsleigh appeared in the first ever Winter Olympic Games in 1924, though not included in the 1960 Winter Olympics, bobsleigh has featured in every Winter Olympics since. Womens bobsleigh competition began in the US in 1983 with two races in Lake Placid, New York, one held in February and the second held during the World Cup races in March 1983. Womens two-woman bobsleigh made its Olympic debut at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Bobsleigh is also contested at American, European, and World Cup championships. Germany and Switzerland have proven the most successful bobsleighing nations measured by overall success in European, World, World Cup, since the 1990s Germans have dominated in international competition, having won more medals than any other nation
38.
Curling at the 1924 Winter Olympics
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The curling event at the 1924 Winter Olympics was contested only by men. It is the first curling event in Olympic history, the winning team was selected by the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, Perth, the mother club of curling. Note, R. France, Great Britain and Sweden were the countries to participate in the curling competition. All games were 18 ends in length, monday, January 28,1924,10,00 AM Tuesday, January 29,1924,10,00 AM Wednesday, January 30,1924,10,00 AM The Herald - Scotland Wins an Olympic Gold. Judd Curling, Etcetera, A Whole Bunch of Stuff About the Roaring Game by Bob Weeks The Curling History Blog - Debunking the story that a GB curler also played for Sweden at the 1924 Winter Olympics
39.
Ice hockey
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Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponents net to score points. Ice hockey teams usually consist of six each, one goaltender. A fast-paced, physical sport, ice hockey is most popular in areas of North America, Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity. In North America, the National Hockey League is the highest level for mens hockey, the Kontinental Hockey League is the highest league in Russia and much of Eastern Europe. The International Ice Hockey Federation is the governing body for international ice hockey. The IIHF manages international tournaments and maintains the IIHF World Ranking, worldwide, there are ice hockey federations in 74 countries. Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th century United Kingdom and these games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules were developed, such as shinny and ice polo. The contemporary sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey began in the 1880s, and professional ice hockey originated around 1900. The Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the Canadian amateur champion, in international competitions, the national teams of six countries predominate, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Of the 69 medals awarded all-time in mens competition at the Olympics, in the annual Ice Hockey World Championships,177 of 201 medals have been awarded to the six nations. In Russia and the Ukraine, where hockey can also refer to bandy, the name hockey has no clear origin. The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word hockey when he translated the proclamation in 1720, the 1573 Statute of Galway banned a sport called hokie—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves. A form of this word was thus being used in the 16th century, though much removed from its current usage. According to the Austin Hockey Association, the word derives from the Scots Gaelic puc or the Irish poc. The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his caman or hurley is always called a puck. Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian times, in Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the closely related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey. IJscolf, a game resembling colf on a surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age. It was played with a curved bat, a wooden or leather ball
40.
Ice hockey at the 1924 Winter Olympics
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The mens ice hockey tournament at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, was the 2nd Olympic Championship, also serving as the 2nd World Championships. The competition was held from Monday, January 28,1924, to Sunday, canada, represented by the Toronto Granites, defended its championship from the 1920 Summer Olympics. The United States and Great Britain took the silver and bronze respectively, while other contenders included Czechoslovakia, France, the Bergvall system used in the 1920 Olympics was discarded in favor of a two-level round-robin tournament. Qualifying teams were placed in pools for the round, with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the final round. The medals were awarded based on the record in the final round and this format would remain in use until the 1992 Winter Olympics, when the final round-robin was replaced with a medal-round single-elimination tournament. Not all reserve players are known, the top two teams advanced to the medal round. The top two advanced to the medal round. Note, The CAN v SWE and USA v GBR games were carried forward from the previous round,1924 Olympic Games report International Olympic Committee results database
Bobsleigh (1) ()
Curling (1) ()
Ice hockey (1) ()
Figure skating (3) ()
Speed skating (5) ()
Nordic skiing ()
Military patrol (1) () [nb 1]
Nordic combined (1) ()
Ski jumping (1) ()
Estonia speed skater Christfried Burmeister was also in the list of participants but the message about his withdrawal wasn't sent to the organizers.[7]
Great Britain
France
Sweden
Switzerland
Czechoslovakia
United States
Italy
Belgium
Finland
Norway
Canada
Poland
Austria
Hungary
Yugoslavia
Latvia
