WEEKLY WHINE

Ice and fire, but no singing

There now follows a ranking of the top Winter Olympic logos. Criteria include recognisability [can you tell that this represents the Winter Olympics?], location exclusivity [can you tell where they are being held?], and interestingness [can you distinguish it from the other Winter or Summer Olympic logos?].

1. 2006 Winter Olympics, Turin, Italy: The Mole Antonelliana, the world’s tallest unreinforced brick building, is represented by ice crystals.
2. 1998 Winter Olympics, Nagano, Japan: The multicoloured flower seen here is also a snowflake, made up of a ski jumper, a speed skater, a figure skater, a snowboarder, and whatever the red and orange guys are supposed to be.
3. 1994 Winter Olympics, Lillehammer, Norway: The first Winter Olympics held out of phase with the Summer Olympics used a logo that depicts a ribbon representing the aurora borealis.
4. 1988 Winter Olympics, Calgary, AB, Canada: This logo depicts a stylised snowflake made up of double Cs, for Calgary and Canada, while also reflecting the maple leaf from the Canadian flag.
5. 1984 Winter Olympics, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia: The stylised snowflake is in the style of traditional embroidery used in the region.
6. 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City, UT, USA: This time, the stylised snowflake depicts the Sun rising over a mountain peak.
7. 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver, BC, Canada: This logo was named Ilaanaq, meaning friend. It is based upon inuksuit, stone markers built by Inuit and other aboriginal cultures of the Canadian Arctic. However, Vancouver is not located in the Canadian Arctic.
8. 1956 Winter Olympics, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy: The peaks of the local Dolomites are seen within a stylised snowflake.
9. 1964 Winter Olympics, Innsbruck, Austria: This logo is adapted from the Innsbruck coat of arms, showing a bridge over the Inn River.
10. 1968 Winter Olympics, Grenoble, France: The three red dots represent the roses on the Grenoble coat of arms.
11. 1992 Winter Olympics, Albertville, France: The Olympic flame carries the cross of the flag of Savoy, the départment in which Albertville is located. The blue, white, and red stripes below represent skis, giving the overall effect of a skier on fire.
12. 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid, NY, USA: Red, white, and blue stripes are found on a stylised peak representing the Adirondacks.
13. 1972 Winter Olympics, Sapporo, Japan: Designing a Winter Olympic logo for Japan? Slap a rising sun on top of a snowflake and call it a day.
14. 1932 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid, NY, USA: These were the first Winter Olympics with an official logo, depicting a ski jumper in front of a map of North America, with Lake Placid’s location marked.
15. 2018 Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang, Korea Rep: The hangul letters P and C form the traditional Korean triad of heaven, Earth, and humanity, with an asterisk.
16. 1928 Winter Olympics, St Moritz, Switzerland: There was no official logo, but there was a poster depicting the Swiss and Olympic flags, with the Piz Corvatsch in the background.
17. 1936 Winter Olympics, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany: This logo depicts the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain.
18. 1952 Winter Olympics, Oslo, Norway: This is a quite simple logo, depicting only the Olympic rings and the recently completed city hall of Oslo.
19. 1924 Winter Olympics, Chamonix, France: The Winter Sports Week held in Chamonix was later retroactively declared the first Winter Olympics. There was no official logo, but there was a poster depicting a giant eagle attacking some bobsledders, or something.
20. 1976 Winter Olympics, Innsbruck, Austria: Denver, CO, USA was originally awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics, but a referendum to allocate state funds failed. The games were hurriedly moved to Innsbruck, which reused its 1964 logo.
21. 1948 Winter Olympics, St Moritz, Switzerland: This logo features only the name and location of the event along with, for some reason, the Sun from the flags of Uruguay and Argentina.
22. 1960 Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley, CA, USA: Are those triangles supposed to represent a snowflake, or what?
23. 2014 Winter Olympics, Sochi, Russia: This logo represents a traditional Russian domain name.