The Olympic Games are a behemoth, featuring multi-millionaire athletes in glitzy venues with overhyped media.

The Olympics have come a long way from their roots, particularly the Winter Games, whose earliest editions resembled winter carnivals. Those first Winter Olympics, particularly the inaugural event in 1924, were just a tiny fraction of the elephantine size of today.

In modern times, the Games are normally held in large metro areas that are able and willing to shell out billions of dollars for the privilege. They’ve become so expensive that the International Olympic Committee can barely find cities to host them.

A century ago, the hosts were usually smaller, resort-type areas, including Chamonix, a city in the Alps of southeastern France that boasts a current population of 8,900.

Chamonix was the site of the initial Winter Games in 1924, which were staged at the foot of nearby Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe. The event opened on Jan. 25 and lasted for 12 days.

That inaugural Winter Olympics, though, did not officially go by that name. Though the word “Olympiad” was frequently used in newspapers and appears on the official poster of the Games, the event was formally known as “International Sports Week.”

At the time, the event was not an actual Olympics, at least not in the eyes of the IOC. Finally, the 1924 Games were designated as “the first Winter Olympic Games” the next year.

A handful of traditional winter events had been held in previous Summer Olympics, including figure skating in both 1908 and 1920, as well as hockey in 1920. The IOC decreed in 1921 that a full winter version would be held for the first time in 1924.

Sixteen nations sent a total of 258 competitors to the 1924 Games, a minuscule number by today’s standards. The largest team was Great Britain with 44 members, one more than the host nation, France. The United States sent 24 athletes, while five nations sent fewer than 10, including Latvia, with two.

Still, the world took notice, as the Games received plenty of coverage in the press, particularly in the United States. The Americans collected four medals, far behind Norway, which led the world with 17.

Finland was next with 11 medals, while the host French only managed three medals, all bronze. Ten of the 16 nations earned at least one medal, with eight countries taking one or more golds.

The athletic menu was limited; only 16 events across nine disciplines were held. Competitions included a four-man bobsled, 18-kilometer and 50-kilometer cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and five events in speed skating. There also was “military patrol,” a team sport that combined cross-country skiing and rifle. The event was contested only at Chamonix, though it remained a demonstration sport at the Olympics through 1948.

Curling was contested at Chamonix, but was retroactively recognized as official at the 1924 Games by the IOC in 2006. There were also three figure skating events – men’s singles, women’s singles and pairs.

Those were the only events in which women were allowed to enter. Overall, only 13 of the competitors in the Games were female, including 11-year-old Sonja Henie of Norway, who finished last in an eight-person field in women’s singles. She would win the next three Olympic competitions, as well as 10 world titles.

The gold medalist in women’s figure skating was Herma Szabo of Austria, a seven-time world champion whose mother was also a two-time world medalist. She also competed in pairs at Chamonix.

The first person to win a gold medal in Chamonix – and therefore, in the history of the Winter Olympics – was Charles Jewtraw of the United States, who captured the title in 500-meter speed skating on Day 2 of the event. Jewtraw stepped away from competition after Chamonix and became a sales rep for Spalding Sporting Goods.

One of the big stories of the 1924 Games was the Canadian hockey team. The nation was represented in the competition by the Toronto Granites, an amateur senior team chosen for the honor.

Canada ripped through the Olympics in unparalleled fashion, winning all three group-stage games by a combined score of 85-0. The scores included a 30-0 rout over Czechoslovakia, a 22-0 victory over Sweden, and a 33-0 humbling of Switzerland. Canada proceeded to hammer Great Britain, an unlikely hockey nation, 19-2 in the semifinals before a 6-1 win over the United States in the final.

The top scorer for Canada was Harry “Moose” Watson, a Newfoundland native who had been an ace in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I. Watson netted a total of 37 goals in the five games of Olympic competition.

One of the U.S. hockey players was Clarence “Taffy” Abel, an Ojibwe from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and the flagbearer for the American Olympic team. In November 1926, he became the first Native American player in the National Hockey League and was a member of Stanley Cup teams in 1928 and 1934.

Other notables of the 1924 Games included Clas Thunberg of Finland, who won five medals in speed skating, including three golds. Thunberg was a 30-year-old product of Helsinki who did not take up speed skating until age 18.

Roald Larsen, the son of a glassworker from Oslo, won two silvers and three bronzes of his own in speed skating. Another Norwegian, Thorleif Haug, won three golds, sweeping both cross-country events while taking the Nordic combined. He died of pneumonia in 1934 at age 40.

Haug also won the bronze in ski jumping in 1924, or so it seemed. During a reunion of the 1924 Norwegian team in 1974, a Norwegian sports historian discovered a scoring error, and that the bronze should have gone to Anders Haugen of the United States, who was actually a native Norwegian himself.

Born near Oslo in 1888, Haugen emigrated to the United States at age 20 and later settled in the Milwaukee area, where he joined the Milwaukee Ski Club and used the organization’s new ski hill.

In 1974, Haugen traveled to Norway, where Haug’s daughter, in a gracious display of sportsmanship, presented him with his rightful medal. Not surprisingly, the IOC refused to recognize the change for several years before relenting.

Haugen, who later moved to the Lake Tahoe area and was still actively skiing at age 91, died in 1984 at age 95. He remains the only American to win an Olympic medal in ski jumping.

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.