Canada at the Winter Olympic Games
Canada first competed in the Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix in 1924 and has sent athletes to the highly-awaited event since then. Canada has also hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in Calgary in 1988 and Vancouver in 2010.
The nation at least won a medal at every Winter Games it has participated. The nation’s most productive participation at the Winter Games was in Vancouver where the nation captured 26 medals to eclipse its 24-medal output in Turin, Italy in 2006. It’s record-setting 14 gold medal haul in Turin is the most gold medals won by a country at the Winter Games overtaking the 13 gold medal won by Soviet Union (1976) and Norway (2002).
Canada’s first official gold medal in the Winter Games came from ice hockey in Chamonix, France in 1924.
The Canadians are dominant in ice hockey as it captured 13 gold medals (counting the gold won in Antwerp and four won by its women’s team) between 1920 and 2018.
team Canada at the 2010 opening ceremonyTrivia
- Only five athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, including Clara Hughes of Canada.
- Canada were undefeated in ice hockey for the first four Winter Games. Canada finally lost their first ice hockey match in 1936, with Great Britain winning the gold medal (though note that almost all of the British players lived in Canada). In Oslo in 1952, the Canadian ice hockey team won their seventh gold medal in eight Olympics - though it was fifty years before they won another. In 2002, the Canadian men's ice hockey team won the gold medal 50 years to the day after the last time they'd done so. The Canadian women's ice hockey team also won, with USA second in both cases.
- Canada boycotted the 1972 Games in Sapporo in protest of Eastern European "state amateurs".
- The first black male gold medal winner at the Winter Olympics was Canadian ice hockey player Jarome Iginia, at Salt Lake City in 2002.
- Canada created history in Sochi 2014 when it became the first nation to win both men's and women's Curling events in the same Olympics.
- Canadian sisters competed in women's moguls at Sochi 2014 - Justine Dufour-Lapointe (gold), Chloe Dufour-Lapointe (silver) and (12th).
Related Pages
- Canada at the Summer Olympics
- More Winter Olympics Countries
- Winter Olympics main page.
- About Sport in Canada
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