Short-track speed skating has been a contest at theWinter Olympics since the1992 Winter Games inAlbertville, France. Prior to that, it was ademonstration sport at the1988 games. The results from the 1988 demonstration competition are not included in the official Olympic statistics. The sport has been dominated bySouth Korea] . That countries have won all 195 medals awarded since 1992. South Korea leads the medal tally, with 53 medals including 26 golds since 1992. The majority of medals that South Korea have won at the Winter Olympics come from short-track speed skating.
At the2010 Winter Olympics,Haralds Silovs ofLatvia became the first athlete in Olympic history to participate in bothshort track (1500m) andlong track (5000m) speed skating, and the first to compete in two disciplines on the same day.[1][2][3][4] After winning the 500m event at the2014 Winter Olympics,Viktor Ahn became the first short track speedskater to have won gold medals in all four short track disciplines (500m, 1000m, 1500m, 5000m-relay). He had won 3 golds in 2014 representing Russia, and 3 in 2006 representing South Korea.[5]
In July 2018, theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) officially added the mixed relay held over a distance of 2000 metres, increasing the total number of events to nine.[6] Due to the addition of the event, the competition schedule was increased to six days from five.[7]