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Learn about the history, venues, events, and achievements of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Find out how Canada broke the record for the most gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics and how the Games achieved record global coverage.
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See the number and color of medals won by each nation at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Canada led the gold medal count with 14, while the United States had the most total medals with 37.
RankNationGoldSilver1147210133915498Feb 12, 2010 · Find out everything about the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. See the athletes, medals, results, highlights, venues, legacy and more.
Find out the list of teams and medals won by each at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. Watch replays and highlights of the Olympic events and sports on the official IOC channel.
- Overview
- Vancouver City Information
- Notable Events from the Vancouver Winter Games
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The XXI Olympic Winter Games opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 12 and closed on February 28, 2010. To celebrate the Games, Britannica is pleased to offer a broad selection of information on Vancouver and the Olympics, including a video highlighting the city’s history and geography; an interactive map of the Olympic venues; a brief history of the Winter Olympic Games and past Canadian Games, with tables featuring International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidents, sites of the Olympic Games through the years, and medal winners of 2006; a colourful photo gallery; and daily highlights of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Vancouver’s Olympic quest began in 1998, when the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) selected the city over Calgary and Quebec for Canada’s bid to host the 2010 Winter Games. The bid was technically a joint venture between Vancouver and the Coast Mountains resort town of Whistler, which lies about 70 miles (110 km) north of Vancouver and was the proposed site of most of the Games’ skiing and sliding events. The Vancouver bid to host the Games was shortlisted along with those from Bern, Switzerland, P’yŏngyang, North Korea, and Salzburg, Austria, in August 2002. Bern withdrew its bid one month later after a referendum indicated that most Bern voters did not want to pay for the Games. On July 2, 2003, the final vote of the IOC was held in Prague. In the first round of balloting, P’yŏngyang captured 51 votes, while Vancouver trailed in second place with 40 and Salzburg received 16. Salzburg was eliminated for the second round of voting, which Vancouver won 56 to 53, bringing the Olympic Games to Canada for a third time (Montreal had hosted in 1976 and Calgary in 1988).
Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia) to the north and the Fraser River delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island. The city is just north of the U.S. state of Washington. It has a fine natural harbour on a superb site facing the sea and mountains.
Vancouver was originally a small sawmilling settlement, called Granville in the 1870s. It was incorporated as a city in April 1886 (just before it became the western terminus of the first trans-Canada railway, the Canadian Pacific) and was renamed to honour the English navigator George Vancouver, of the Royal Navy, who had explored and surveyed the coast in 1792. In 1929 two large suburbs to the south, Point Grey and South Vancouver, amalgamated with Vancouver, and its metropolitan area became the third most populous in Canada. By the 1930s Vancouver was Canada’s major Pacific coast port. After World War II it developed into Canada’s main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim.
•February 12:
•Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a practice run hours before the Vancouver Olympic Games were set to open.
•Technical difficulties caused delays at the opening ceremonies—the first Olympic opening ceremonies held indoors—which featured Canadian Olympic greats such as skier Nancy Greene, ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and basketball player Steve Nash.
•February 13:
•Simon Ammann of Switzerland was awarded the first gold medal of the Vancouver Olympics after winning the normal hill ski jumping event.
•Slovakia’s Anastazia Kuzmina won the first Winter Olympic gold medal in her country’s history by scoring a surprise victory in the women’s 7.5-km biathlon sprint.
Learn about the history, venues, events, and highlights of the XXI Olympic Winter Games hosted by Vancouver and Whistler, Canada, in 2010. Explore the city's geography, culture, and legacy of the Games with Britannica's articles, videos, and interactive map.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- 578,041 (8th largest city in Canada)
- 44 square miles (114 square km)
- 1886
A comprehensive list of the athletes who won medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. See the gold, silver and bronze medalists in 15 disciplines, such as alpine skiing, biathlon, curling and more.
See the official medal count of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, held in 2010. Find out which countries won the most gold, silver and bronze medals and how many in total.
