As the province celebrates its first 100 years, Alberta's Olympic athletes have enjoyed more than a few firsts during the Summer and Winter Games.
In Sweden during the 1912 Summer Olympics, Edmonton's Alex Decoteau became the first Albertan to ever compete in the Games.
He ran the 5,000 metres, but didn't finish in the top three.
Then, just last year in Athens, Calgary's Kyle Shewfelt became the first Canadian ever to medal in artistic gymnastics, winning gold on the floor exercise.
Edmonton's Lori Ann Muenzer also won gold in 2004, in cycling.
And who can forget about Edmonton's Waterloo Mercurys, who won Olympic gold in ice hockey in 1952 in Oslo, Norway?
In fact, they became one of Canada's most successful but forgotten teams, until Canada's NHLers won gold in Salt Lake City, erasing 50 years of frustration on the Olympic ice.
Part of the reason the Mercurys went to the Games in the first place was thanks to the deep pockets of owner Jim Christiansen, who footed the bill for the Games and a pre-Olympic tour where they went 42-7-2.
Yet, many of Alberta's finest athletes didn't get to amateur sport's biggest stage, like the late, great Stu Hart of Calgary, whose Olympic moment was interrupted by bigger events.
Hart, an outstanding wrestler, was set to show his stuff in Tokyo back in 1940, but those Games were cancelled because of the Second World War and Hart never did get to compete at an Olympiad.
Perhaps the best Alberta-based team to compete in the Olympics never won a medal.
The Edmonton Grads, a women's basketball team, would have reached the podium several times under different circumstances.
They never won a medal because when they competed (1924, 1928, 1932 and 1936), women's hoops was still a demonstration sport.
In fact, they never lost a single game at the Olympics, losing only 20 games from 1922-40, going an incredible 522-20 over that span.
Women's basketball didn't become an Olympic sport until 1976 at the Montreal Games.
Still, Albertans have claimed their fair share of hardware, especially in the Winter Games.
Michelle Cameron and Carolyn Waldo swam home from Seoul with the gold in 1988 after winning synchronized swimming.
Catriona Le May Doan, who calls Calgary home, won back-to-back speed skating gold medals in 1998 and 2002, and her 500-metre time of 37.22 seconds, set in December 2001, still stands as the world record.
At the 1988 Winter Games in the Stampede City, Banff's Karen Percy-Lowe thrilled fans with Canada's first medal on home soil and skied off with a pair of bronze medals.
Not to be forgotten is Calgary's Pierre Lueders, who amazed bobsleigh fans at the 1998 Games in Nagano with a gold medal and was another Olympic first.
Lueders and brakeman Dave McEachern actually tied Italy's Guenther Huber after two days of competition and four heats, ending up with exactly the same cumulative time --3:37.24. For the first time ever, two teams shared the gold in bobsled.
