The sender is involved in many sports and mentions karate as her favourite. Sapporo was the host city for the 1972 Winter Olympics—the first Winter Games held outside North America and Europe. I hadn’t realized that Sapporo had also beaten out Banff and Calgary in the bidding process. Calgary would later go on to host the 1988 Winter Olympics.
The 1972 Sapporo Games featured 35 National Olympic Committees, with just over 1,000 athletes competing in 35 events across six sports and 10 disciplines. By comparison, the recent 2026 Winter Olympics will include around 92 committees, nearly 2,900 athletes, and 116 events in eight sports and 16 disciplines.
The Soviet Union topped the medal table with 16 medals (8 gold, 5 silver, and 3 bronze), followed by East Germany with 14, and Switzerland with 10. The host nation, Japan, won three medals—one of each colour—after having earned only one medal in all previous Winter Olympics combined. Canada won a single silver medal in women’s singles figure skating, earned by Karen Magnussen.
An interesting side note I hadn’t known about is that Canada refused to send a hockey team, arguing that the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries were effectively using professional players. This was still an era with strict rules around amateur status in Olympic competition.
This was also the last Olympics at which a gold medal was won using all-wooden skis.
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