Latvia at the Winter Olympic Games
Before Latvia was occupied and invaded by the Soviet Union in 1940, the nation competed at the Winter Olympic Games in 1924. 1928 and 1936. The nation was part of the USSR team that competed in both the Winter and Summer Games from 1952 to 1988. Latvia athletes returned to competing under the Latvian flag in 1992, the first time since 1936 that the nation had competed as an independent nation at the Winter Olympic Games. It has competed at all Winter Games since.
The young nation has already captured medals in winter sports such as skeleton, luge and bobsleigh.
Notable Latvian medalists at the Winter Games include: Juris Šics who secured 3 medals (1 silver and 2 bronze) in luge from 2010 to 2014, Martins Dukurs who won 2 silver medals from 2010 to 2014 and Mārtiņš Rubenis who captured 2 bronze medals from 2006 to 2014.
Rubenis’s bronze medal is Latvia’s first-ever medal at the Winter Games and the solitary medal won by his country in 2006.
Trivia
- At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Latvian athlete Haralds Silovs became the first athlete in Olympic history to participate in both short track (1500m) and long track (5000m) speed skating, and also became the first to compete in two different disciplines on the same day.
Related Pages
- About Sport in Latvia
- Latvia at the Summer Olympics
- USSR at the Winter Olympics
- More Winter Olympics Countries
- Winter Olympics main page.
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