Let the Games Begin!

The opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games takes place tonight in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Don't miss the thrilling competitions to come! At the 2002 Olympics, more than 2,000 athletes representing more than seventy nations will compete in seventy-eight different events—including those lightening-fast bobsleigh races.

Since the Winter Games began in 1924, bobsleigh events have expanded. The four-man bobsleigh event—shown in today's poster—was contested at the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. The two-man bobsleigh event was introduced at the 1932 Winter games in Lake Placid, New York. This year's Salt Lake City games are another landmark—the first competition for the two-woman bobsleigh event.

Today's poster promotes recreation at the Lake Placid run. Watch this year's games to see how bobsleigh design has changed since this late 1930s depiction!

Pictured: Jack Rivolta, Up Where Winter Calls to Play, 1936–41, color silkscreen, 25 x 16 1/2 in., Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.