The earliest Winter Olympics–related items in the Tartu-based Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum ( Eesti Spordi- ja Olümpiamuuseum) date back to the 1928 Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

This was just a few years after Estonia had become an independent nation, and so it was a source of national pride then as now to be represented at the games.

St. Moritz was the second ever Winter Olympics. By a strange twist of fate, at the debut games in 1924 held in Chamonix, France, the Estonian flag intended for the opening ceremony made it to the event, but the athletes did not get to compete. That disappointment had been rectified by the time of the St. Moritz games four years later, when Estonia was represented, albeit by just two competitors.

It is worth calling to mind that so far as things went for Estonia, the oldest competitive winter sport was not cross-country skiing, which the country had major success in some eight decades later, but ice-based activities like speed skating: Indeed the two Estonians who competed at St. Moritz were men's speed skaters, Aleksander Mitt and Christfried Burmeister.

Burmeister was particularly successful at those games. The museum's collection includes four Olympic diplomas (nowadays awarded to top eight finishers) he picked up, for distances ranging from 500 to 10,000 meters, all from the 1928 games. His best result was 15th place in the 1,500-meter speed skate. The diploma for the 10,000 meters (pictured) is also unusual – that event at the 1928 Olympics was never finished: Due to rapidly warming weather and changing ice conditions, the event was not completed and no medals were awarded.

To mark the Milan–Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympics, the Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum chose 10 items from Estonia's winter sports past, which are featuring on Vikerraadio broadcasts between February 9 and February 20.

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