The first modern Olympic games were held in 1896 but it was not until 1924 that the first Winter Games were held.

Winter Sports had long had their own World Championships with speed skating first holding theirs in 1893, and the first figure skating World Championships taking place in 1896 - the same year as the first Olympics.

But initially these events were included in the Summer Games the 1908 London Summer Olympics had figure skating and by the 1920 Antwerp games ice hockey was also included.

By 1924 it was decided there should be a separate Winter Games and they took place in Chamonix in France.

However, due to opposition for some Scandanavian countries who thought it would detract from their own Nordic Games, it was initially called 'International Sports Week 1924'.

So it was not until 1926 that the Chamonix tournament was given the name of the Winter Olympics.

Sixteen countries and 258 athletes took part in the 16 events.

The first Winter Olympic gold medalist was American Charles Jewtraw who won the 500m speed skating event.

Finland's Clas Thunberg won five medals - a feat not matched for 56 years - but it was another Scandanavian country Norway who topped the overall medal table with 17 medals.

The Norwegian team also dominated the 1928 tournament in St Moritz, Switzerland taking 15 medals.

Thunberg won another two gold medals and 15-year-old Sonja Henie won the first of her three golds.

The Lake Placid Games in 1932 made history in several ways.

Britain's flag was carried by a women - an Olympic first.

And America's Eddie Eagan, who was part of the gold medal winning bobsleigh team, became the first and so far only person to win gold in both summer and winter games. He had previously won the light heavyweight boxing gold.

And both skating events - speed and figure skating were held indoors for the first time.

The home nation America, with 12 medals, topped the medal table.

1936 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany saw the introduction of alpine skiing.

Norway's 16-year-old Laila Schou Nilsen won the combined downhill event.

The feat was unique because at the time she held every speed skating record for the distances between 500m and 5,000m but was unable to enter that competition because of the ban on women.

Sonja Henie won her third and final medal and Great Britain caused a shock by winning the ice hockey gold.

Norway again topped the medal table with 15.

After a break of twelve years because of World War Two the Games returned to St Moritz in 1948 (due to the country's neutrality in the war) and both Germany and Japan were banned.

American Dick Button took gold in the figure skating and revolutionised the sport with his jumping.

The Scandanavian teams dominated the Nordic events but it was controversy in Ice Hockey that was the story of the tournament.

The US Olympic Association (USOC) and the Amateur Hockey Association both sent teams representing America and the ICO threatened to cancel the event unless the dispute was resolved.

Eventually the USOC recalled their team and America finished fourth.

For the fourth time in five tourney Norway topped the medals table, finishing joint with Sweden and Switzerland.

Finally after dominating the first five Winter Olympic tournament a Scandanavian country hosted the games with Oslo staging the 1952 Games.

Dick Button defended his figure skating gold and the Germans dominated the bobsleigh.

This was due to the weight of the two competitors who between them weighed more tham 500 pounds.

This led the international Bobsleigh Federation to put a weight limit on team members.

Again, Norway, the hosts, finished top of the medal table.

The 1956 Games were held in Cortina in Italy but the first appearance of the Soviet Union, who won seven events, dominated the news.

With the Norwegians being disappointed in several events and failing to win a medal in the speed skating for the first time in 24 years, the Soviets led the medal table with 16 medals.

Four years later in 1960 at Squaw Valley in California, controversy returned to plague the Games.

The alpine and cross-country skiing courses were considered to be too difficult and bobsleigh was excluded as it was too expensive to build a run.

The US ice hockey team achieved a memorable victory beating both Canada and the Soviet Union on the way to the final.

There they beat Czechoslovakia but only after the Soviet captain Nikolai Sologubov suggested they inhale concentrated oxygen.

Biathlon was introduced for the first time and Sweden's Klas Lestander won.

His running time placed him 15th but he finished first due to his perfect shooting.

The Soviets continued to perform best overall topping the medal table again.

For those involved with the American figure skating team the Innsbruck Games in 1964 was a time of rememberance.

Three years earlier the entire team had been killed in a plane crash.

These games were the first time America did not win a gold with 14-year-old Scott Allen taking bronze.

The star of the games was undoubtedly the Soviets' Lydia Skoblikova. Already a double-gold medalist from four years previously, she won all four speed skating events to become the first person to win four gold medals.

Her country-women Klaudia Boyarskikh won the 5km, 10km and 3x5km Nordic skiing events.

Again the Soviets topped the medal table with 25 medals.

Many will remember the 1968 Games in Grenoble in France for the achievement of Jean-Claude Killy who won the alpine events.

But the tournament was also full of shocks. Italian Franco Nones became the first non-Sacndinavian to win a cross-country skiing event in the 30km race.

Vladimir Beloussov was the first and only Soviet to win a ski jumping event.

The biggest shock however came when Austria's Emmerich Danzer - the 1966 and 1967 World Champion - failed to win a medal.

There was more success for another World champion, nine time winner Eugenio Monti. He finally won Olympic gold at his last attempt.

Norway once again topped the medal table with 14.

Some thirty-two years after they were meant to hold the games, which were cancelled due to World War two, Sapporo in Japan hosted the 1972 games.

Japanese ski-jumpers won all three medals in the 70-meter event.

The Soviets once again claimed gold in the ice hockey beating the US in the final. But the competition was marred by the boycott by the Canadians and the Swedes, who refused to play because, whilst NHL professionals could not play Soviet professionals could.

Again the Soviets topped the medals table with 16 medals.

The 1976 games were held in Innsbruck, but they were originally supposed to have been held in Denver in the United States.

However Denver citizens protest over the staging of the Games because of environmental and economic reasons.

A referendum was held, and passed, prohibiting the state from using taxes on such events.

This made the games technically illegal and the Denver Olympic Organizing committee withdrew as host.

Innsbruck was chosen as emergency host.

Several Austrians won gold including Franz Klammer (men's downhill) and Karl Schnabl (ski-jumping).

There were several shocks as well. Britain's John Curry won gold in the men's figure skating and Bill Koch won America's only ever cross-country skiing medal - a silver.

The Soviet Union topped the medal table with 27 medals.

The 1980 Games were held at Lake Placid in America and the home athletes did their country proud.

The American ice hockey team - a group of inexperienced collage students - recorded a stunning gold medal win overcoming the professionals of the Soviet Union on the way to the final.

This feat was matched by Eric Heiden's five gold medals in the men's speed skating event - a record.

Yet despite the various successes of the American competitiors it was the Soviet Union that again topped the medal table with 22.

1984 saw the Games held in Sarajevo in Yugoslavia.

The Games will also stand out in minds of the British public for Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's gold medal winning performance.

The pair scored nine perfect sixes for their performance to Ravel's Bolero.

The Americans had success on snow and ice but they were unable to retain their ice hockey gold - won in such stunning circumstances four years earlier, and failed to win a medal at all.

East Germany caused a surprise by winning more golds than the Soviet Union, but the Soviets still finished top of the medal table with a total of 25.

Four years later Canada finally held the Games in what was to be the longest at that time spanning 16 days and three weekends.

After six attempts - three from Calgary- the tournament was finally held there in 1988.

On the first day American speed skater Dan Jansen learnt of the death of his older sister.

He decided to skate on in her memory but fell in both his events - the 500m and the 1000m.

His team mate Bonnie Blair went on to claim gold. East German Christa Rothenburger set a world record but Blair beat that by just 2/100th to take gold.

In the ski jumping Matti Nykanen - the 'Flying Finn' - won all the individual events and won gold in the team event.

Yet he was almost overshadowed by the man who finished last in both individual events - Britain's Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards.

The Soviets and the Swiss won the two and four-man bobsleigh respectively but the event will be remembered for the entry of a team from Jamaica and the participation of Prince Albert of Monaco.

Katarina Witt of East Germany won her second successive gold, and a young brash Italian Alberto Tomba made his first mark on the ski slopes.

Again the Soviet Union topped the medal table with 29.

The 1992 Games, as with the Summer Games of the same year in Barcelona will be remembered for being the first after the end of the Cold War.

Germany competed as one nation and the likes of Estonia, Latvia and Estonia competed independently for the first time in over 50 years.

Five former republics competed under the name of the Unified Team using the Olympic flag and anthem - with Yelena Valbe and Lyubov Egorova winning ten medals between them and a at least one gold each.

Their team mate Viktor Petrenko won the men's figure skating gold.

Norway, who had not won an Alpine skiing medal since 1952 won four, led by Kjetil-Andre Aamodt.

The 1994 Games in Lillehammer were held two years early so that the Winter Games would now run in between the Summer Games.

Prior to the Games American skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked and it was discovered teammate Tonya Harding was involved.

Kerrigan eventually came second to Oksana Baiul of the Ukrain.

Switzerland's Gustav Weder and Donat Acklin became the first men to succesfully defend the two man bobsleigh team.

America's Dan Jansen finally won gold after his heartache in 1988.

With America and Russia both going out of the ice hockey early Sweden went on to surprice Canada in the final.

And the host nation returned to the top of the medal table, as they had done so many time in the early years of the Games, with 26.

The 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano will be the second time the Games will have been held in Japan.

A popular destination for Japanese holidaymakers Nagano, which is situated in the Nagano Prefecture of Japan’s largest island of Honshu, is known as the Japanese Alps due to its similarity with the European region.

The city, which has a population of 350,000, and the surrounding area form the largest ski area in Asia and it is considered the birthplace of skiing in Japan after its introduction by Europeans in the 1930s.

Nagano has twice been unsuccessful in bids to hold the Winter Games, once in 1940 and then again in 1972.

Now a centre for high-technology electronics, machinery and the food industries, Nagano is built around the Zenkoji temple, which was built to house the first image of Bhudda brought to Japan almost one and a half centuries ago, and still attracts over seven million tourists and worshippers every year.

The earliest economy of the area that grew over the past three-hundred years around the inns where worshippers stayed, was agriculture.

Today paddy fields still cover the undeveloped areas around the city and the region is well known for its apples.

© PA Sporting Life