To some, snow and the cold are what makes them frown deeply; to others, it is beautiful and inspiring. To Winter Olympic athletes, the snow and cold is their chance to make their country proud; wearing a gold, silver, or bronze medal is what they have worked so hard for.

The 2018 Winter Olympics are underway, and many athletes are skating and skiing into victory. Being held in PyeongChang, South Korea, many nations have collected their best Olympians to compete for the gold.

The tradition of the Olympics has been around since ancient Greece.

Speaking of how the Olympics first originated in 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece, author Dr. Stephen Instone said, “The Games were an attractive means of getting men fit. Another factor is the traditional Greek view that the gods championed a winner, so by establishing a competition aimed at producing supreme winners, they were thereby asserting the power and influence on humans of the supreme god, Zeus.” In the beginning, the games were mostly racing but eventually led into other sports that we know today, such as boxing and wrestling.

The Winter Olympics came not too shortly after the first modern-day Olympics.

When the Olympics reappeared in 1896, according to the History Channel, there were no winter sports included like today. The History Channel said, “Germany planned a Winter Olympics to precede the 1916 Berlin Summer Games, but World War I forced the cancellation of both.”

Eventually, Scandinavians, who already had a winter sports competition called the Nordic Games, agreed to stage an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sanctioned International Sports Week.

“It was so popular among the 16 participating nations that, in 1925, the IOC formally created the Winter Olympics, retroactively making Chamonix the first,” said the History Channel.

During the 2018 Winter Olympics, there have been several new things occurring, such as giving stuffed animals in place of medals.

“The keepsake that rewards Olympic medalists this year is a white tiger named Soohorang, the mascot of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics,” said author, Sara Begley. Adding on, Begley explains how there is a ceremony held where winners receive their medals later on.

2018 Olympics continue to develop new circumstances with the arrival of North Korea’s cheerleaders in the midst of the world’s nuclear tension with the country.

“The cheerleaders have been praised as human olive branches, a preliminary way to ease tensions during the current nuclear crises. They have been criticized as singing, dancing spearheads of a strategic North Korean propaganda campaign at the Games,” said author Andrew Keh.

Several American Olympians have already won gold.

“17-year-old Red Gerard made it through the swirling winds to capture the United States’ first gold medal of the 2018 Olympics,” said Jennifer Earl and Kaitlyn Schallhorn. “At 17, Chloe Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal during the Winter Games.” Following these two athletes, there was Jamie Anderson, Shaun White, and Mikaela Shiffrin.

The Winter Olympics in PyeongChang is giving Olympians the chance to win for their country, just as the Summer Olympics do. Many people are gathered around TV screens, laptops, and some in the actual stadiums, cheering and hoping for the victory these athletes are aiming for. Still, have a ways to go, the games take place until Feb. 25, and then the Paralympics occur Mar. 9-18.