1988 Winter Olympics

The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (French: XV^es Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 were a multi-sport event held from February 13 to 28, 1988, with Calgary, Alberta as the main host city. This marks the most recent time that two consecutive Olympic Games were hosted in North America (with the 1984 Summer Olympic Games hosted in Los Angeles, California, United States). It was the first Winter Olympic Games to be held for 15 days, like the counterpart Summer Olympic Games. The majority of the events took place in Calgary itself. However, the snow events were shared by Nakiska ski resort in Kananaskis Country at the west of the city and the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park in the town of Canmore.

In 1988, a record 57 National Olympic Committees (NOC) sent a total of 1,424 athletes to these Games. These Winter Olympics would be the last attended for both the Soviet Union and East Germany NOCs. Just like the 1976 Summer Olympics, host country Canada failed again to win a gold medal on their home soil (They won three gold medals in demonstration events, but they are not added at the official medal table). The Finnish ski jumper, Matti Nykänen, and the Dutch speed skater, Yvonne van Gennip, won three individual gold medals each. The 1988 Winter Olympics were also remembered for the "heroic failure" of both the British ski jumper, Michael Edwards, and the debut of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team. Both of them became subjects of major feature films about their participation in these Games: Cool Runnings by Walt Disney Pictures in 1993 and Eddie the Eagle by 20th Century Fox in 2016.

At approximately C$829 million, the Calgary Games were the most expensive Olympics ever held at the time, as all the necessary infrastructure was built from scratch. The facilities that were built for these Winter Olympics helped the host region to turn into the heart of Canada's elite winter sports program, under the tutelage of WinSport. After the Games, their legacy still standing and in constant use, as the five purpose-built venues for those Games are now used for training and hosting various winter sporting events every year. These policies helped Canada develop into one of the top nations in Winter Olympics competition. The climax of this effort was the overall first-place finish at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.