2010 Winter Olympics (Vancouver)
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50 free 2010 Winter Olympics (Vancouver) trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 2010 Winter Olympics gave Canada the home gold medal it had missed at two earlier Games, and then a record haul on top of it. By the final afternoon the hosts led the gold medal table, a hockey final against their neighbours had gone to overtime, and most of the country was watching. This quiz covers the Vancouver medal count from several angles: which countries led the table, which records fell, and which athletes went home with the most medals. It also takes in the bid, the opening and closing ceremonies, the mascots, the mild weather that left one venue short of snow, and the champions in figure skating, snowboarding, alpine skiing, speed skating and curling. It suits anyone who watched in February 2010 and wants to see what stuck, quiz hosts building an Olympic round, and teachers after a ready-made set. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Canadian scored the overtime goal that beat the USA in the 2010 Olympic men's ice hockey final?
Sidney Crosby
Sidney Crosby scored 7 minutes and 40 seconds into overtime. About two thirds of the country was watching, the largest television audience Canada had ever recorded.
Q 02Which country's men's curling team became a hit at the 2010 Olympics for its loud diamond-patterned trousers?
Norway
Norway wore the harlequin golf trousers all the way to the final. Thomas Ulsrud's rink lost it to the hosts and went home with silver medals and worldwide attention.
Q 03Which hockey great rode on a truck through downtown Vancouver to light the outdoor 2010 Olympic cauldron?
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky had already helped light an indoor cauldron in the stadium. Organisers had secretly built a second, permanent one on the waterfront.
Q 04Which country won the most medals overall at the 2010 Winter Olympics, a then-record 37?
United States
The United States took 37 medals, one more than the previous Winter Games record. Its nine golds, though, ranked only third.
Q 05Which snowboarder landed a Double McTwist 1260 on a victory-lap run after winning 2010 Olympic halfpipe gold?
Shaun White
Shaun White had gold secured by his first-run score, so the second run was a lap of honour. He ended it with the new trick, which he named the Tomahawk.
Q 06Which figure skater won 2010 Olympic gold with record scores after a short program to music from the Bond films?
Yuna Kim
Yuna Kim set the highest short program, free skate and total scores yet recorded under the judging system. All three went into Guinness World Records.
Q 07Jon Montgomery was filmed gulping a fan's pitcher of beer after winning 2010 Olympic gold in which sport?
Skeleton
Skeleton champion Jon Montgomery was handed the pitcher as he walked through a crowd singing the national anthem. He later became host of The Amazing Race Canada.
Q 08Which Montreal-born actor joined Michael J. Fox for comic monologues at the 2010 Olympic closing ceremony?
William Shatner
William Shatner riffed on beer, part of a show that sent up national clichés with giant inflatable beavers, flying moose and dancing Mounties.
Q 09Which 2010 Olympic snowboard venue near Vancouver needed snow flown in by helicopter after an unusually mild winter?
Cypress Mountain
Cypress Mountain was almost bare just before the Games. Trucks and helicopters carried snow down from higher ground so the snowboard and freestyle events could go ahead.
Q 10Which skier became the first American woman to win Olympic downhill gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics?
Lindsey Vonn
Lindsey Vonn won by 0.56 seconds despite a badly bruised shin. Warm weather had pushed the alpine races back, giving the injury extra days to heal.
Q 11Which moguls skier became the first Canadian to win Olympic gold on home soil at the 2010 Winter Olympics?
Alexandre Bilodeau
Alexandre Bilodeau won the men's moguls on the second day of competition. Canada had hosted the Games in Montreal and Calgary without a single home gold.
Q 12Which country's team wore black armbands at the 2010 opening ceremony to mourn its luger Nodar Kumaritashvili?
Georgia
Georgia's athletes entered to a standing ovation with a black ribbon on their flag. The whole ceremony was dedicated to their 21-year-old teammate, who had died in training that day.
Q 13Which Leonard Cohen song did k.d. lang sing at the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony?
Hallelujah
Q 21Canada led the 2010 gold medal table, a feat no Winter Olympic host had managed since which city's 1952 Games?
Oslo
Oslo 1952 was the last time the home team had finished top. Canada got there with 14 golds, at the time the most any country had won at one Winter Games.
Q 22Canada's 14 golds at the 2010 Olympics beat a Winter Games record of 13 first set in 1976 by which team?
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union won its 13 golds at Innsbruck. Canada's 14 then stood alone as the record until 2018, when two countries matched it.
Q 23Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir became the first North American Olympic champions in which figure skating event in 2010?
Ice dance
Hallelujah was sung while images of doves, the symbol of peace, rose from the stadium floor to the roof. Singer and songwriter were both Canadian.
Q 14Which Black Sea resort city received the Olympic flag at the 2010 closing ceremony as the next Winter host?
Sochi
Sochi's mayor took the flag from the IOC president. The handover show sent giant zorbs rolling across the stage while an orchestra played live from Red Square.
Q 15Which country finished second in the 2010 Winter Olympics gold medal table, four golds behind the hosts?
Germany
Germany won ten golds, two each from biathlete Magdalena Neuner and alpine skier Maria Riesch. Its 30 medals also ranked second in the overall count.
Q 16Amy Williams won which country's only medal of the 2010 Winter Olympics, a gold on the sliding track?
Britain
Britain had waited 30 years for an individual Winter Olympic champion. The last had been figure skater Robin Cousins at Lake Placid in 1980.
Q 17Which cross-country skier won five medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics, more than any other athlete?
Marit Bjørgen
Marit Bjørgen took three golds, a silver and a bronze. Only one other athlete at the Games, a Chinese short-track skater, matched her three golds.
Q 18Which Dutch speed skater lost 10,000 m gold at the 2010 Olympics after his coach sent him into the wrong lane?
Sven Kramer
Sven Kramer finished first, then learned he had been disqualified. Coach Gerard Kemkers had shouted the wrong instruction at a lane change late in the race.
Q 19Vancouver won the 2010 Olympic host vote by 56 to 53 over which city, later the 2018 Winter host?
Pyeongchang
Pyeongchang led the first round, in which Salzburg was eliminated, but lost the run-off. It was the closest Olympic host vote since Sydney beat Beijing for 2000.
Q 20Mukmuk, the popular sidekick to the 2010 Olympic mascots, was based on which rare Vancouver Island animal?
Marmot
Marmot Mukmuk was the only character based on a real animal. Fans staged a mock protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery demanding he be promoted to full mascot.
Ice dance gold had gone to European couples at every previous Olympics. Virtue and Moir were also the first ice dance team to win the title on home ice.
Q 24Which basketball star helped light the indoor cauldron at the 2010 Olympic opening ceremony in Vancouver?
Steve Nash
Steve Nash, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player raised in British Columbia, took the flame from a speed skater and passed it on to skier Nancy Greene.
Q 25Which speed skater had nothing to light at the 2010 Olympic opening ceremony when one cauldron arm failed to rise?
Catriona Le May Doan
Catriona Le May Doan stood by while three others lit their arms. At the closing ceremony a mime pretended to repair the fourth arm so she could finally light it.
Q 26Which short-track skater passed Bonnie Blair at the 2010 Olympics to become the most decorated American Winter Olympian?
Apolo Ohno
Apolo Ohno won a silver and two bronzes in Vancouver. That took his career haul to eight medals, two of them gold.
Q 27Biathlete Anastasiya Kuzmina won which country's first Winter Olympic gold as an independent nation at the 2010 Games?
Slovakia
Slovakia's only earlier Winter champion, figure skater Ondrej Nepela, had competed for Czechoslovakia. Kuzmina went on to win gold at the next two Games as well.
Q 28Which freestyle skiing event made its Olympic debut in 2010, with Canada's Ashleigh McIvor its first women's champion?
Ski cross
Ski cross sends four racers at a time down a course of jumps and banked turns. The IOC voted it onto the programme in November 2006.
Q 29Vancouver's NHL arena became Canada Hockey Place for the 2010 Olympics, dropping which sponsor's name?
General Motors
General Motors Place lost its name because Olympic venues cannot carry corporate sponsors. Its ice stayed NHL-sized, about four metres narrower than the usual international rink.
Q 30Which TV satirist's viewers bankrolled US speed skating after its main sponsor went bust before the 2010 Olympics?
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert was later named the team's assistant sports psychologist. His viewers stepped in with donations after a Dutch bank's collapse left the skaters without their main sponsor.