1988 Winter Olympics: History and Background

The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (French: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 were a multi-sport event held from February 13 to 28, 1988, with Calgary, Canada, as the main host city. This marks the most recent time that two consecutive Olympic Games were hosted in North America; the 1984 Summer Olympics were hosted in Los Angeles. It was the first Winter Olympic Games to be held for 15 days, like the counterpart Summer Olympic Games. Most of the events took place in the city of Calgary; the snow events were shared by Nakiska ski resort in Kananaskis Country at the west of the city and the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park in the town of Canmore. It was the last Winter Olympics that took place during the Cold War.

In 1988, a record 57 National Olympic Committees (NOC) sent a total of 1,424 athletes to these Games. These Winter Olympics would be the last attended for both the Soviet Union and East Germany NOCs. As had been the case at the 1976 Summer Olympics, which were held in Montreal, Canada did not win an official gold medal on their home soil, although they won three gold medals in unofficial demonstration events. The Finnish ski jumper, Matti Nykänen, and the Dutch speed skater, Yvonne van Gennip, won three individual gold medals each. The 1988 Winter Olympics were also remembered for the "heroic failure" of the British ski jumper, Michael Edwards, and the debut of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team. Both of them became subjects of major feature films about their participation in these Games, respectively Eddie the Eagle in 2016 and Cool Runnings in 1993.

At approximately C$829 million, the Calgary Games were the most expensive Olympics ever held at the time, as all the necessary infrastructure was built from scratch. The facilities that were built for these Winter Olympics helped the host region to turn into the heart of Canada's elite winter sports program, under the tutelage of WinSport. The five purpose-built venues are still used for training and hosting various winter sporting events.

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