 |
NAGANO, JAPAN
XVIIIth WINTER GAMES |
February 7 -
22, 1998 |
Mascot -
Snowlets |
72 countries,
2302 athletes (814 women) |
7 sports, 68 events |
Opening -
Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko |
Torch lit by -
Midori Ito (figure skating) |
Candidates:
Jaca (ESP), Ostersund (SWE), Salt Lake City, Val d'Aosta (ITA) |
15 June 1991 - 97th IOC Session in
Birmingham, UK - Nagano was elected to be the host of the XXVIIIth
Olympic Winter Games in 1998.
Round |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Nagano |
21 |
|
30 |
36 |
46 |
Jaca |
19 |
|
5 |
|
|
Ostersund |
18 |
|
25 |
23 |
|
Aosta |
15 |
29 |
|
|
|
Salt Lake City |
15 |
59 |
27 |
29 |
42 |
 The East met West in February
1998 as Nagano, Japan played host to 72 nations - 10 of which competed for the first time in an
Olympic Winter Games - and
regions participating in the final Olympic Games of the 20th century.
The country's raw enthusiasm for
the games persisted despite a pummeling of snow, rain and more snow and
finally even an earthquake which delayed several of the games alpine
events. Perhaps the defining
event of these games, the strange meteorology of the past two weeks
bedeviled organizers and beleaguered athletes, forcing cancellations,
reschedulings and general befuddlement all around.
And the people came - 1,358,207
of them at competitions and victory ceremonies by Sunday afternoon.
Local Olympic organizers expected the total at competitions alone to
reach 1,270,000 when everything from Sunday is counted.
The ice hockey tournament was a
source of inspirational team efforts. The U.S. women's ice hockey team
defeated nemesis Canada 3-1 in the final to capture the sport's first
gold medal. In the men's competition, the Czech Republic team, which
featured the least amount of professional players of any final-round
team, shocked Canada with a legendary 2-1 shootout victory in the
semifinals and held off the mighty Russians 1-0 in the final to win
gold.
Nordic skier Bjorn Dahlie won
four medals and became the winningest Winter Olympic athlete ever,
leaving Nagano with a career total of 12 medals, including eight gold.
U.S. figure skater Tara Lipinski
became the youngest woman ever to win her event. The 15-year-old held
off Michelle Kwan's near-perfect challenge for the honor. Russian Ilia
Kulik upset favorites Todd Eldridge and Elvis Stojko to capture his
first gold medal in men's figure skating.
The home crowd waved flags and
cheered wildly through a driving snow for Japanese ski jumpers Masahiko
Harada and Takanobu Okabe who tied for the longest jump on skis in
Olympic history - 137 meters.
New medal events such as women's
ice hockey as well as snowboarding and curling were also received well
by the crowds.
Canadian ski boarder Ross
Rebagliati won a gold medal in men's slalom, only to have it taken away
because of a failed marijuana drug test. An arbitrator sided with
Rebagliati, who said second-hand smoke caused his positive test, and
returned the medal to him.
One of the most memorable images
of the games was Austrian Hermann Maier's fall in the downhill. It was a
horrible tumble which launched Maier into the air upside-down before
smashing him through two retaining fences. Amazingly Maier was not
seriously injured and returned three days later to win the Super-G.
The list of those who didn't get
a medal at all included some unexpected names: Alberto Tomba, Wayne
Gretzky and American figure skater Nicole Bobek, whose bumps, skids and
falls made for some of the games' most excruciating images. She finished
17th. And the U.S. men's hockey finished last in many eyes when, after
being eliminated from the tournament, some of its players trashed three
Olympic Village rooms.
"Congratulations, Nagano and
Japan,'' IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said in his speech at the
closing ceremony. ''You have presented to the world the best
organization in the history of the Olympic Winter Games.'" That praise fell short of the
ultimate accolade of ''the best Winter Games ever'' that Samaranch
bestowed on Lillehammer four years ago. But it was more enthusiastic
than the label ''indeed most exceptional'' that he used to describe the
troubled 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. Samaranch also noted with
gratitude the fact that the nations of the world had upheld the terms of
a nonbinding U.N. resolution calling for no military hostilities during
the games. ''We hope that the observance of
the Olympic Truce during the Nagano Olympic Winter Games has served the
purpose of searching for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the
conflicts we are facing today,'' he said.
The Olympics ended with an eerie,
memorable image: a darkened Minami Nagano Sports Park jammed with
people, the only light a few muted blue spotlights and orange flames
flickering in five places - four traditional Japanese bonfires and, high
above, the Olympic flame. Spectators, given handheld, battery-operated
lanterns to hold, ignited them on command, turning the stadium into a
breathtaking cluster of human fireflies. On the giant video monitor,
images of games past scrolled by: St. Moritz. Oslo. Grenoble. Sapporo.
Innsbruck. Lake Placid. Sarajevo. And, finally, Nagano - the images of
the past two weeks, packaged in slow motion, a perfect highlight film. Countless spotlights pierced the
air above the stadium, illuminating it against the mountain backdrop at
dusk. The virtual darkness bred quiet, which bred intensity and rapt
attentiveness - until a cascade of fireworks constructed with ancient
Japanese techniques lit up the sky.
Nagano Mayor Tasuku Tsukada
presented the Olympic flag to Deedee Corradini, mayor of Salt Lake City,
home of the next Winter Games in 2002. Later, the Utah vanguard - a
stagecoach and riders on horseback - reconnoitered the arena with a
once-around and gave the Japanese a taste of what the next Winter
Olympics might hold.
Fireworks fuses zoomed like
missiles to their targets, lighting up streamers and turning the sky
into daytime at dusk. Colorful looped flags of myriad colors and designs
swarmed the stadium, cloth needle eyes jutting into the air.
Nagano was portrayed as an
ancient city rich in oriental history and native culture which was
brought into many living rooms around the world for the first time. Just
like the opening ceremony, the end of the 1998 Olympics was a mosaic of
East and West, traditional and modern wrapped up in a hometown festival:
Lion dances, bonfires, harvest festival tiruals, "Snowlets"
mascots and a catchy Japanese pop rhythm - all against the backdrop of
the breathtaking Japanese Alps, commemorated in a haunting composition,
"Reverberations of the Myriad Peaks." The games' closing
ceremonies were highlighted by 2,000 traditional Japanese rhythmic drums
and 50,000 traditional glowing lanterns, bringing a peaceful end to the
weather-weary 18th Olympic Winter Games.
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