The Winter Olympic Games are a winter multi-sport event held every four years. They feature winter sports held on ice or snow, such as ice skating and skiing.
Each National Olympic Committee (NOC), as with the Summer Olympics, enters athletes to compete against other NOC's athletes for gold, silver, and bronze medals. Fewer nations participate in the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics, due largely to the reduced popularity of winter sports in many countries nearer to the equator where access to winter sport training facilities are relatively limited or non-existant.
Like the Summer Olympics, the United States has hosted the most times, four, most recently in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002. France has hosted the Winter Olympics three times. Austria, Italy, Japan, Norway, and Switzerland have all hosted the games twice. Canada will have hosted twice after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Germany and Yugoslavia have hosted the games once and Russia will host the Winter Olympics for the first time in 2014. Three cities have hosted twice; Lake Placid, United States, St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Innsbruck, Austria
The most recent games were held in Turin, Italy in 2006, and the next games will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 2010. On July 4, 2007, the Russian resort of Sochi was chosen to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
