American George Eyser won six Olympic medals in gymnastics in a single day at St Louis 1904, including three gold and two silver medals, despite competing with a wooden prosthesis for a left leg. He had lost his real leg after being run over by a train when he was a teenager. Despite his disability, he won gold in the vault, an event which then included a jump over a long horse without aid of a springboard. Eyser remained the only person with an artificial leg to have competed at the Olympic Games until Beijing 2008 when South Africa's Natalie du Toit took part in the 10 kilometres swimming marathon, finishing 16th.

The largest and heaviest medals ever awarded to medal winners at an Olympics was at the 1936 Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. They were 100 millimetres in diameter, four millimetres thick and weighed 342 grams. Norway finished top of the medals table with a total of 15, including seven gold, easily ahead of the host nation Germany, who won six, three of them gold.

Hidy and Howdy, mascots for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, continued to be used by the city to greet visitors for nearly 20 years after the Games ended. The smiling, cowboy-themed polar bears, designed to evoke memories of "western hospitality" were popular across Canada. The sister-brother pair made up to 300 appearances per month in the lead up to the Games. From their introduction at the Closing Ceremonies of Sarajevo 1984 until the conclusion of Calgary 1988, the pair made about 50,000 appearances. It was not until 2007 that Calgary stopped using their images on posters.

A sled dog race was included as a demonstration event at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. There were five contestants from Canada and seven from the United States. The event, run under the rules of the New England Sled Dog Club, ran twice over a 25.1 mile long course. With six dogs per sled, each sled took off at three-minute intervals, and intermediate times were given to the mushers at four miles, 10.6 miles, and 22.46 miles. The event was won by Canada's Emile St. Godard, who beat America's Leonhard Seppala and compatriot Shorty Russick.

Russia has competed at the Olympics on many occasions, but as different nations in its history. As the Russian Empire, the nation first participated at Paris 1900, and returned again at  London 1908 and Stockholm 1912. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, it would be 30 years until Russian athletes competed at the Olympics, as the Soviet Union at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia competed as part of the Unified Team in 1992 at Albertville for the Winter Games and Barcelona for the Summer. They finally returned once again as Russia at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

Mexico made its debut in the Winter Olympics at St Moritz in 1928 when they competed in the five-man bobsleigh, finishing 11th. They did not take part in the Winter Games again until Sarajevo 1984 when they sent as its sole competitor German-born Alpine skier Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who had been born in Mexico while his father was working for Volkswagen there. He has subsequently competed for Mexico at Calgary 1988, Albertville 1992, Lillehammer 1994 and Vancouver 2010, where at 51 he was the oldest competitor in the Games.

Australia became the first Southern Hemisphere nation to claim a gold medal at the Winter Olympics when Steven Bradbury won the 1,000 metres short track speed skating in bizarre circumstances at Salt Lake City in 2002. Well off the pace Bradbury was positioned at the rear in the semi-final, only to see his rivals crash into each other, allowing him to reach the final. Again well off the pace in the final all four other competitors crashed at the final corner, leaving Bradbury to take victory. Bradbury was also part of the relay team that had won Australia's first Winter Olympics medal, a bronze, at Lillehammer in 1994.

America's Tara Lipinski became the youngest ever individual gold medalist in the history of the Olympic Winter Games when, at the age of 15, she won the women's figure skating at Nagano in 1998. In the long programme, Lipinski performed seven triples, including a historic triple loop/triple loop combination and, at the very end, a triple toe/half loop/triple salchow sequence, to overtake teammate Michelle Kwan for the gold medal. Lipinski turned professional shortly afterwards and is now a sports commentator for Universal Sports.

The only person to win the same event in both Summer and Winter Olympics was Sweden's Gillis Grafström. He won figure skating gold medals at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, when the sport was part of the programme for the Summer Games, and then at the inaugural Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924. He retained his title at St Moritz in 1928 and claimed silver at Lake Placid 1932, where his chances of a fourth consecutive gold medal were ended when he collided with a photographer on the ice.

In 1984, the Berlin street known as Stadionallee - Stadium Boulevard - south of the Olympic Stadium in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf was renamed Jesse-Owens-Allee in recognition of the four gold medals that the American had won there in 1936. Owens' widow Ruth and his three daughters attended the dedication ceremonies as guests of the German Government. A memorial plaque for Owens is also located at the Olympiastadion. In the same year, a secondary school in Berlin-Lichtenberg, was named after Owens.

American Eddie Eagan is the only person to win a gold medal at both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in different events. The Harvard and Oxford University law graduate won a gold medal in light-heavyweight boxing at Antwerp in 1920 and then, 12 years later, was a member of the United States four-man bobsleigh team that won at Lake Placid. Later, the Denver-born Eagan became a lawyer, and served in the army as a colonel during the Second World War.

Canadian ice hockey legend Syl Apps, winner of three Stanley Cup titles at the Toronto Maple Leafs, was also a world-class pole vaulter. He won the gold medal in the event at the 1934 British Empire Games in London and finished sixth at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. An outstanding all-round sportsman, Apps also captained the McMaster University football team to an inter-collegiate title in 1936. Apps was a Conservative member of the Ontario Parliament between 1963 and 1974 and served in the Cabinet as Minister of Corrections.

Edwin Flack was Australia's only representative at Athens 1896 Olympics but managed to finish eighth in the overall medals table on his own. Flack, an accountant for Price, Waterhouse & Co in New York City, first won the 1500 metres and then claimed victory in the 800m. He also took part in the tennis doubles with British friend George S. Robertson, although they lost their only match in the semi-finals. He might have won a third gold medal as he was leading the marathon with less than two miles to go but collapsed. He was so delirious that, when a Greek spectator tried to help him, Flack punched him.

There have been four deaths at the Winter Olympics. The first was Britain's Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski, who died during a training run for the luge at Innsbruck in 1964. Three days later Australian downhill skier Ross Milne also died when he struck a tree during a practice run. The next death did not occur until Albertville 1992 when Nicolas Bochatay, competing in speed skiing, a demonstration event at the Games, collided with a snow grooming vehicle. Georgia's luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was the last person to be killed when, during a training run on the morning of the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony, he crashed and died.

St. Moritz was chosen to host the 1948 Winter Olympics ahead of Lake Placid in the United States because it was in Switzerland, who had remained neutral during World War Two. As St Moritz had already staged the Games in 1928 the International Olympic Committee also believed that it would make the organisation simpler and more economical. But, despite the existence of many of the venues, it was still a difficult task to organise the Games in less than 18 months, including the building of several new railway stations. Switzerland has not hosted the Olympics since, despite bidding four times.