Geographic distribution of all medal winning countries from the past two Olympics that I through together:
Comparing the last two Olympics, 83% of countries worldwide were represented at the summer games while only 34% were represent at Turino’s winter games (202 and 82 out of 243 countries worldwide).
True, more events are held in the Summer Olympics (301 versus 82), but the geographical distribution has more to do with the per capita income and climate of the participating countries than just the number of events. It really comes down to the events of the Summer Olympics being more accessible to more people.