Austria at the Olympics

Austrian athletes were represented at all Olympic Games of the modern era, with the exception of 1920 in Antwerp. The number of participants varied from 2 (1904 in St. Louis) to 183 (Berlin, 1936). Until 1918, athletes from other parts of the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy also took part in the Olympic Games.

With the exception of the Summer Games in Tokyo in 1964 and in London in 2012, at least one medal was won in each participation. With a total of 232 medals, the focus is on winter sports (especially skiing). In contrast, 99 medals were won in summer sports and 9 in the arts. Along with Norway and Liechtenstein, Austria is one of only three countries that have been more successful at the Winter Games than at the Summer Games.

Alignments

So far, the Winter Olympics have been held twice in Austria. Both times the Winter Games were held in Innsbruck. Innsbruck also hosted the 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012.

In Salzburg's bid for the 2010 Winter Games, the Austrian city was eliminated in the 1st round of voting on July 2, 2003. Four years later, on 4 July 2007, Salzburg again failed in the 1st round in its bid for the 2014 Winter Games.

Successful candidatures

• Innsbruck 1964 (Winter Games)
• Innsbruck 1976 (Winter Games; only at the 2nd election the games went to Innsbruck, because the actual organizer, Denver, had to give back the games).
• Innsbruck 2012 (Winter Youth Games)

Unsuccessful candidatures

• Innsbruck 1960 (Winter Games)
• Vienna 1964 (Summer Games)
• Graz 2002 (Winter Games)
• Klagenfurt 2006 (Winter Games)
• Salzburg 2010 (Winter Games)
• Salzburg 2014 (Winter Games)

Candidatures not forwarded by the ÖOC

In some years, several Austrian venues had shown interest in hosting Winter Games. According to the IOC statutes, a country can only propose one location as host. For the following bids, the bidding process therefore ended with the national preselection:

• Innsbruck 2002 (Winter Games)
• Kitzbühel 2006 (Winter Games)
• Kitzbühel 2010 (Winter Games)
• Innsbruck 2014 (Winter Games)

Medalist

Main article: Alphabetical list of all Austrian medalists

The most successful Austrian participants at Olympic Games are (table includes all athletes who won at least two medals, at least one of which was gold):

Felix Gottwald (Nordic combined, 3 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze) won the most medals with seven Olympic medals.

Four medals were won by Thomas Morgenstern (ski jumping, 3 gold, 1 silver), Hermann Maier (alpine skiing, 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Benjamin Raich (alpine skiing, 2 gold, 2 bronze), Mario Stecher (Nordic combined, 2 gold, 2 bronze), Stephan Eberharter (alpine skiing, 1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), Gregor Schlierenzauer (ski jumping, 1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze), Bernhard Gruber (Nordic combined, 1 gold, 3 bronze), Martin Höllwarth (ski jumping, 3 silver, 1 bronze), Marlies Schild (Alpine skiing, 3 silver, 1 bronze), Dominik Landertinger (biathlon, 2 silver, 2 bronze) and Klaus Sulzenbacher (Nordic combined, 1 silver, 3 bronze).

A successful "title defence", i.e. the repetition of the Olympic victory, was achieved by Karl Schäfer in figure skating (1932 and 1936), Peter Seisenbacher in judo (middleweight, 1984 and 1988), Roman Hagara/Hans-Peter Steinacher in sailing (tornado, 2000 and 2004) as well as Andreas and Wolfgang Linger in luge (doubles), the ski jumping team (Thomas Morgenstern and Andreas Kofler were part of both successes) and the Nordic combined team (both times with Felix Gottwald and Mario Stecher) in 2006 and 2010 respectively.