List of participating nations at the Winter Olympic Games
The first Winter Games were held in 1924, in Chamonix, France. They were originally called "International Winter Sports Week" and held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, but were in retrospect designated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the "I Olympic Winter Games".
Sixteen nations participated in these Games: fourteen from Europe and two from North America.
Four years later, 25 nations were represented at the 1928 Winter Olympics, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, including Argentina (the first nation from the Southern Hemisphere), Japan (the first Asian nation), and Mexico.
Participation in the 1932 Games, held in Lake Placid, United States, during the Great Depression, was reduced to 17 nations.
The 1936 Winter Games, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, had 28 participating nations, the largest number to that date.
These would be the last Winter Games for twelve years, as the planned 1940 Games and 1944 Games were cancelled due to World War II.
Roy Forbes (ice hockey)
The 1948 Winter Olympics were to be held in St. Moritz, Switzerland. They were then officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games as they were the first Olympic games to be celebrated after World War II. In the fall of 1947, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association invited the RCAF to form Canada’s Olympic ice hockey squad. Although Forbes traveled to St. Moritz as a member of Canada national hockey team, due to tournament rules that allowed teams to dress only twelve players, Forbes was used as a reserve and did not get into game play during the 1948 Olympics. Nonetheless, Forbes was a member of the team that won Canada’s first gold medal in Olympic hockey since 1932, and he was given an Olympic Gold Medal.