Winter Olympic Games
major international multi-sport event
The Winter Olympic Games (French: Jeux olympiques d'hiver), also known as the Olympic Winter Games or simply the Winter Olympics, are a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The Winter Olympics are usually held in February, during the winter season of the Northern Hemisphere. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo of Italy hosted in 2026. The next games are scheduled to be held between 1 and 17 February 2030 at the French Alps.
The original five Winter Olympic Sports (consisting of nine disciplines) were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing (consisting of the disciplines military patrol, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, and ski jumping), and skating (consisting of the disciplines figure skating and speed skating). The Winter Olympic Games have evolved since their inception. Sports and disciplines have been added and some of them, such as alpine skiing, luge, short track speed skating, freestyle skiing, skeleton, and snowboarding, have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic program. Some others, including curling and bobsleigh, have been discontinued and later reintroduced; others have been permanently discontinued, such as military patrol, though the modern Winter Olympic sport of biathlon is descended from it. Still others, such as speed skiing, bandy and skijoring, were demonstration sports but never incorporated as Olympic sports.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Winter Olympic Games” as major international multi-sport event. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as major international multi-sport event. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q82414. VIAF identifies the subject as 138453350. The Library of Congress control number is n2006026303. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026 and 2030.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Winter Olympic Games”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Winter Olympic Games primary sources, Winter Olympic Games archive and Winter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Winter Olympic Games”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Winter Olympic Games” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.