Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics

The team from Ghana during the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In 2014, Michael Christian Martinez became the first Filipino, the first Southeast Asian, and the first male figure skater from a tropical country in the Winter Olympics, as well as the first Philippine Winter Olympian in 22 years.

Several tropical nations have participated in the Winter Olympics despite not having the climate for winter sports. Partly because of that, their entries are a subject of human interest stories during the Games.[1][2][3] No tropical nation has ever won a Winter Olympic medal.

The first warm-weather, but not fully tropical, nation participating in the Winter Olympics was Mexico. Much of Mexico is at a latitude north of the Tropic of Cancer, and most of the country has a subtropical highland or semi-arid climate, so it is not exclusively a tropical nation. Nonetheless, Mexico made its Winter Olympic debut at the 1928 Winter Olympics[4] with a five-man bobsleigh team that finished eleventh of twenty-three entrants.[5] Mexico did not return again to the Winter Games until the 1984 Winter Olympics.[6]

The first truly tropical nation to compete in the Winter Olympic Games was the Philippines, who sent two alpine skiers to the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.[7] Ben Nanasca placed 42nd in giant slalom skiing (out of 73 entrants), and Juan Cipriano did not finish. In slalom skiing, neither skier was able to finish. Costa Rica became the second tropical nation to participate at the Winter Games, in the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York,[8] where Arturo Kinch also competed in alpine skiing events. Kinch would continue to compete for Costa Rica at three more Winter Games, including the 2006 Winter Olympics at age 49. There he finished 96th in the 15 km cross-country skiing event, ahead of only Prawat Nagvajara of Thailand, another tropical nation.[3][9]

The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada attracted many tropical nations, including Costa Rica, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.[10] The Jamaica bobsleigh team became a fan favorite at these Games[11] and were later the inspiration of the 1993 motion picture Cool Runnings. In the 1994 Winter Olympics six years later, the Jamaican four-man sled placed a creditable fourteenth, ahead of the United States and Russia, while Jamaican-born bobsledder Lascelles Brown won silver for Canada in 2006.

The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy marked the Winter Games debut of Ethiopia[2] and Madagascar.[12] The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada saw the debut of the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Peru,[13] and Ghana.[14] The 2014 Winter Olympics saw the debut of Dominica, Paraguay, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, and Zimbabwe. The 2018 Winter Olympics saw the debut of Ecuador, Eritrea, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Singapore. The 2022 Winter Olympics saw the debut of Haiti.

  1. ^ Brown, Gerry. "Beyond the Jamaican Bobsledders". Infoplease. Retrieved September 16, 2006.
  2. ^ a b "Ethiopia first at Winter Olympics". BBC News. February 10, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006.
  3. ^ a b Bunce, Steve (February 17, 2006). "The crazy race – only the potty need apply". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved January 31, 2008.[dead link]
  4. ^ Comité Olympique Suisse (1928). Rapport Général du Comité Exécutif des IImes Jeux Olympiques d'hiver (PDF) (in French). Lausanne: Imprimerie du Léman. p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 10, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
  5. ^ Comité Olympique Suisse (1928). Résultats des Concours des IImes Jeux Olympiques d'hiver (PDF) (in French). Lausanne: Imprimerie du Léman. pp. 12–13. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 30, 2007. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
  6. ^ Official Report of the Organising Committee of the XlVth Winter Olympic Games 1984 at Sarajevo (PDF). Sarajevo: Oslobodenje. 1984. pp. 89–90. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 26, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  7. ^ The Official Report of XIth Winter Olympic Games, Sapporo 1972 (PDF). The Organizing Committee for the Sapporo Olympic Winter Games. 1973. pp. 32, 145, 447. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 26, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  8. ^ Final Report XIII Olympic Winter Games (PDF). Ed Lewi Associates. pp. 6, 12, 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 27, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  9. ^ "Turin 2006 Winter Olympics – Cross Country Results". Yahoo! Sports. Archived from the original on March 22, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  10. ^ Janofsky, Michael (February 7, 1988). "'88 Winter Olympics; Calgary Has It Down Cold". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  11. ^ Harasta, Cathy (February 20, 1988). "Jamaican bobsledders want to dispel jokes about tropical entry in wintry sport". The Dallas Morning News.
  12. ^ "Madagascar prepares for its first winter Olympic appearance ever in Turin 2006" (PDF) (Press release). rAzAlpin.org. November 28, 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2011. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  13. ^ Brewer, Jerry (February 4, 2010). "Peruvian cross-country skier Roberto Carcelén reaches Olympic dream". The Seattle Times.
  14. ^ Wyatt, Ben; Gittings, Paul (February 27, 2010). "Snow Leopard continues proud African tradition at Winter Games". CNN. Retrieved February 9, 2010.