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Although traditionally associated with cold weather nations, the Winter Olympics have also had participation from several tropical nations. The typical climate of these nations is not conducive to participation in winter sports, and no Winter Olympic medals have ever been won by a tropical nation. Probably because of that, their entries are a subject of human interest stories during the Games.[1][2][3]
The first participation of a warm weather nation in the Winter Games was Mexico. Much of Mexico is at a latitude north of the Tropic of Cancer, and most of the country has a desert or semi-arid climate, so it is not exclusively a tropical nation. Nonetheless, Mexico made its Winter debut at the 1928 Winter Olympics[4] with a five-man bobsleigh team that finished eleventh of twenty-three entrants.[5] Mexico did not return again to the Winter Games until 1984.[6]
The first truly tropical nation to compete in the Winter Olympic Games is the Philippines, who sent two alpine skiers to the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.[7] Ben Nanasca placed 42nd in the giant slalom event (out of 73 entrants), but Juan Cipriano did not finish. In the slalom event, neither skier was able to finish. Costa Rica became the second tropical nation to participate at the Winter Games, in 1980 at Lake Placid, New York,[8] where Arturo Kinch also competed in alpine skiing events. Kinch would continue to compete for Costa Rica at three more Winter Games, including the 2006 Games at age 49. There he finished 96th in the 15 km cross-country skiing event, ahead of only Prawat Nagvajara of Thailand.[3][9]
The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada attracted a large number of tropical nations, including Costa Rica, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.[10] The Jamaican Bobsled Team became a fan favorite at these Games[11] and were later the inspiration behind the 1993 motion picture Cool Runnings.
The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy marked the Winter Games debut of Ethiopia[2] and Madagascar,[12] and the 2010 Games in Vancouver, Canada will see the debut of the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana and Peru.[13]
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