The “Other” Olympics: Why the Winter Games Feel Like an Afterthought

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The buildup to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio set the stage for an epic global congregation of sports.  Headlines were numerous, from Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all-time, competing in his final games, to Usain Bolt’s highly anticipated defense of the title of World’s Fastest Man, and Simone Biles’ quest for gymnastics gold, accompanied by Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas of 2012’s Fierce Five.

The buildup to Pyeongchang’s 2018 Winter Olympics has been, well…different.  In fact, it’s amazing to think we’re just days away from Thursday’s opening ceremony.  Sure, there have been commercials and other advertising, and some U.S. Olympic trials have been shown on TV, but nothing quite to the extent of what we experienced two years ago.  Why?

To answer that question, it’s important to venture into the history of the Games.  The first modern-day Summer Olympics took place in Athens in 1896, but the inaugural Winter Olympics didn’t occur until much later.  The Nordic Games, which began in 1902, featured mostly Scandinavian athletes competing in many current Winter Olympics events, and the 1908 and 1920 Summer Games saw the introduction of figure skating and ice hockey to the Olympics, respectively.  However, it wasn’t until 1924 when the French Olympic committee decided to host an “International Winter Sports Week” in Chamonix in lead up to Paris’ Summer Games that same year that there was a global Winter Olympic Games.

These Games were much smaller than their Summer counterpart, featuring just 258 athletes competing in 16 events, while the latter saw over 3,000 athletes compete in 126 events, numbers both larger than even the upcoming Pyeongchang Games.

This is the first main reason as to the difference in excitement between the Summer and Winter Olympics: pure size and scope.  Compared to the 2014 Sochi Games, Rio 2016 had over three times the events and nearly four times the amount of athletes.  While Rio had 207 participating nations, Sochi saw only 88, with just 26 medaling.  The Winter Games are still growing in every Olympic cycle, but it’s a simple fact that the Summer Games are both larger and more global.

Of course, this is to be expected.  Among all Winter Olympic sports, there is one common denominator: they all involved either ice or snow, which are either rare or all but nonexistent in many countries, including most of the southern hemisphere.  Because of this, people from these countries are not given the opportunity to participate in these sports, nor would it ever cross their minds.  In fact, for many countries which send just one or two delegates to the Games, the athletes were born in the country but were raised in a separate country which receives snow.

Ice and snow clearly serve as barriers to entry, making most Winter Olympic sports very niche from a participation aspect.  Additionally, people will be less interested in watching sports they are unfamiliar with, especially if the sports appear too similar to each other, and in some cases indistinguishable.

Alpine skiing, cross country skiing, and ski jump are all skiing, even if they have their differences.  Nordic combined just mashes the latter two together.  Biathlon pairs cross country skiing with rifle shooting, of all things.  And I’m not sure how many people out there can explain the differences between bobsled, luge, and skeleton.

The Summer Olympics have it easy in this regard, with a wide variety of sports that have just about nothing to do with each other: archery, boxing, cycling, golf, table tennis, etc.  Unsurprisingly, differentiation isn’t a problem when the main thing grouping them together is that ice ISN’T involved.  On the other hand, there reaches a limit to the number of things you can do with ice, and anything unique is worth celebrating.  That’s how we have curling.

Something else to note is that with a smaller pool of athletes comes fewer stars to drive the Games, and stars that are much less recognizable to the average person.  Combined with the fact that outside of hockey, there aren’t really any major Winter Olympic sports we see outside the Olympics, and now the NHL even is not participating in the Games, it’s simply difficult to really know anyone competing unless you happen to be a dedicated follower of a particular sport.

And lastly, since the Winter Olympics is so much smaller and ice-based, when choosing a host city, the IOC is much more flexible about having major global cities host as long as the chosen site is one where it snows.  Just compare the last three Summer Olympics hosts (Beijing, London, Rio) with the recent Winter Olympics hosts (Vancouver, Sochi, Pyeongchang).

While the Winter Olympics is much smaller and garners far less global attention, it still is the Olympic Games – an opportunity for the world to embrace each other and celebrate our greatest athletes.  It only happens once every four years, so don’t miss out.