- Luxembourg at the Olympics
Athletes from
Luxembourg have competed at 28 editions of the modernOlympic Games . Luxembourg'sNational Olympic Committee , theComité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois , was founded in 1912 and sent its first team to the1912 Summer Olympics inStockholm .Recently, it was also discovered that
Michel Théato , who competed forFrance at the 1900 Summer Olympics , was actually Luxembourgish. However, the gold medal Théato won in themarathon at the Paris Games is still credited to France by the IOC.Medalists
Luxembourg has won four Olympic medals (one gold and three silver) in its 28 Olympic appearances.
Winter Olympic Games
Luxembourg first competed at the
Winter Olympic Games in 1928, and has taken part in a total of seven Winter Games. Thus, despite having been one of the earliest countries to take part,Luxembourg has competed in relatively few of the Games. In the seven Games, Luxembourg has won a total of two medals: both silver, and won byMarc Girardelli in 1992.After Luxembourg's first appearance, in
St. Moritz , and the country's second appearance, at the 1936 Games inGarmisch-Partenkirchen , Luxembourg did not compete at the Olympics for another five decades. As a low-lying country, whose highest peak (theKneiff ) lies only 560 metres (1,837 ft) above sea level, Luxembourg had little pedigree in most Winter Olympic sports.However, the naturalisation of
Marc Girardelli , anAustria n-bornalpine ski er, saw Luxembourg return to the Games in 1988. In the following Winter Olympics, in 1992 inAlbertville , Girardelli won Luxembourg's first two Winter Olympic medals, scooping silver in both the Giant Slalom and Super G.Neither Girardelli, nor Luxembourg, has won another Winter medal since 1992, but the country's return to the Winter world stage has been maintained by the appearance of two ice skaters in subsequent Games:
Patrick Schmit in 1998 andFleur Maxwell in 2006.External links
* [http://www.cosl.lu Comité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois] (French)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.