Short Track Speed Skating at The Winter Olympics

Short Track Speed Skating At The Winter Olympics

Short track speed skating has been a contest at the Winter Olympics since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. Prior to that, it was a demonstration sport at the 1988 games. The results from the 1988 demonstration competition is not included in the official Olympic statistics. The sport has been dominated by teams from Asia and North America, namely South Korea (IOC code KOR), China (CHN), Canada (CAN) and the United States (USA). Those four countries have won 104 of 120 medals awarded since 1992. South Korea leads the medal tally (and gold medal tally), with 37 medals including 19 golds since 1992. All but 8 medals (including 4 golds) that South Korea won at the Winter Olympics came from Short-track speed skating. Similarly, 24 of China's 44 Winter Olympics medals are from the sport.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Haralds Silovs of Latvia became the first athlete in Olympic history to participate in both short track (1500m) and long track (5000m) speed skating, and the first to compete in two different disciplines on the same day.