Research On The Historical Evolution Of Sports Program In The Winter Olympic Games

On July 31,2015,the international Olympic committee President Bach announced Beijing won the bid to host the 24 th winter Olympic Games in 2022 on the 128 th plenary session of the international Olympic committee.Accordingly,more and more attention has been attached to the Winter Olympic Games.In this paper,evolution of sports programme of the Winter Olympics has been probed from the historical perspective based on such research methods as literatures,statistics and logical analysis.The following conclusions have been drawn.Firstly,the evolution of the sports programme in the Winter Olympics is divided into four stages based on the historical landmarks in the Winter Olympics,namely,the early stage(1908-1923),the developing stage(1924-1959),rapid development stage(1960-1993),the mature stage(1994-present).Secondly,throughout the whole development of the sport programme in the Winter Olympics in the four stages,in terms of sports,the evolution has been showcased by from2 in the first stage,to the 4 and 6,and lastly to 7 in the fourth stage.With regard to disciplines and events,respectively from 2,to 8,12 and 15 and 4 to 24,57 and 98.Therefore,the evolution has been characterized by slow up in sports,and steady increase in disciplines and dramatic climb in events.Thirdly,the number of athletes participating in the Winter Olympics changed from 258 from 16 countries or regions in 1924 to 2780 from 88 in 2014.There is still a rising trend in the future.In addition,due to the increase in popularity of the project as well as an increase in participation in women competitive sports,the proportion of female athletes also have soared from 4.3% in the winter Olympic games in Chamonix of up to41.7% in Sochi,the proportion of men and women is coming back into balance.Fourthly,snow and ice sports,especially snow sports,have the natural cohesion with nature.The feature of sport itself has changed from transportation means and needs of survival skills to competitive event and spiritual need of appreciation.These sports are so thrilling,stimulating,challenging,fashionable that they attract the audience quickly,arouse the public interest,and promote the participation of mass in ice and snow sports.