Slovakia (SVK)

Slovakia, which split from Czechoslovakia on 1 January 1993 along with the Czech Republic, competed in the Olympic Games as an independent nation for the first time at Lillehammer in 1994. Prior to the division, many Czechoslovakian athletes were actually from Slovakia.

A Slovakian National Olympic Committee was actually first formed on 18 June 1939, which gained recognition via a letter dated 24 July 1939 from then IOC president Henri, Count de Baillet-Latour, and it attempted to revive its activities after World War II in 1945. However, in June 1947, it was co-opted into the Czechoslovak Olympic Committee.

The Slovakian Olympic Committee was re-created in October 1990, and was then formed officially on 19 December 1992, before the nation’s split from the Czech Republic. It received provisional recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 16 March 1993 and official recognition at the 101st IOC session in Monaco on 24 September 1993. Since 1994, Slovakia has competed at all Olympic Games and Olympic Winter Games. Through 2022, it has won a total of 42 Olympic medals, including 14 golds.

Slovakians have particularly excelled in slalom canoeing, winning 15 medals and eight Olympic titles in the sport. Three of these titles were claimed by the Hochschorner twins, Pavol and Peter, who won the C-2 slalom title three times in a row (2000, 2004, 2008). At the Summer Olympics, Michal Martikán has won the most medals for Slovakia, with five medals (two gold, two silver, and one bronze), also won in slalom canoeing (C1).

Slovakia has competed at eight Olympic Winter Games, consecutively since 1994. In 2006, they won their first Olympic Winter medal, when Radoslav Židek won a silver medal in men’s boardercross snowboarding. Slovakia has since won 10 medals and four gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games. The most successful Slovakian athlete has performed at the Winter Olympics: biathlete Anastasia Kuzmina has won three gold and three silver medals from 2010 to 2018.