The first organized international competition involving winter sports was introduced just five years after the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896. Known as the Nordic Games, this competition included athletes predominantly from Nordic countries (such as Norway and Sweden). It was held eight times between 1901 and 1926, with the Swedish capital of Stockholm hosting all but one time. Figure skating was included in the Olympics for the first time in the 1908 Summer Games in London, although the skating competition was not actually held until October, some three months after the other events were over.
In 1911 a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suggested that Sweden should either include winter sports in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm or stage a separate Winter Olympics in the same year. Concerned that such a move would jeopardize the Nordic Games, Sweden refused. Germany supported plans to stage a competition of winter events in early 1916 as part of the Olympic Games scheduled for Berlin later that year. However, the outbreak of World War I in 1914 caused the cancellation of the Berlin Olympics and made the question of Winter Olympic Games moot. Despite continuing protests from the Nordic countries, winter sports returned to the Olympics for the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium, where medals were awarded in figure skating and ice hockey.
Two years later an agreement was reached to celebrate an IOC-sanctioned International Winter Sports Week. Held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, the event was a huge success. Norway topped the medals table with a total of 17, and the Nordic countries, which altogether captured 30 of the 49 medals awarded, dropped their previous objections. The following year the IOC modified its charter to create a separate Winter Olympics. The Games staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1928 were formally designated the second Winter Olympics.
From 1928 the Winter Games were held every four years in the same calendar year as the Summer Games. Eventually, however, the increasing cost and logistic complications of the Olympics prompted IOC officials to alter the schedule. Only two years separated the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway. From then on, the Winter and Summer Games were each held at four-year intervals, alternating in even-numbered years.