The
1994 Winter
Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic
Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in
1994 in Lillehammer
, Norway
. In
1986, the IOC voted to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which
had been held in the same year since the latter's inception in
1924, and arrange them in alternating even-numbered years.
Lillehammer won the right to host the event
in September 1988 in Seoul
before the
opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer
Olympics. The 1994 Winter Games were the first to be
held without the Summer Games in the same year, and marked the only
time the Winter Games have been staged two years after the
preceding Games.
Host Selection
Lillehammer was selected as host over bids
from Anchorage,
Alaska
, U.S.
; Östersund
/Åre
, Sweden
; and
Sofia
, Bulgaria
. The Lillehammer Olympics are notable for
being the last Winter Olympic Games to date to be held in a small
town (Lillehammer's population is 25,000).
The information below comes from
the
International Olympic Committee Vote History web page.
Highlights
- When
the construction of the Lysgårdsbakkene
jumping hills started in 1992, the hills had to be
moved some meters north so that the American broadcaster CBS could get the best pictures available from their
pre-chosen location.
- A month before the games began, Tonya
Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly
hired Shane Stant to club fellow female
figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in the
knee. In the end, at Hamar Olymic Amphitheatre
, Nancy Kerrigan went on to win the silver medal,
behind Oksana Baiul of Ukraine
.
Tonya Harding finished 8th and was later banned from competitive
figure skating for life by the U.S. Figure Skating
Association.
- The day of the opening ceremonies, art
thieves stole Edvard Munch's
masterpiece The Scream from the
National Museum in Oslo.
- For the first time, the Winter Olympics were not held in the
same year as the Summer Games of the Olympiad.
- The Olympic flame was brought into the stadium by ski jumper Stein
Gruben. Former World Champion Ole Gunnar Fidjestøl was supposed
to do this jump, but he got injured on one of the training jumps a
few days before the opening ceremony.
- Local hero Johann Olav Koss won
three speed skating events, setting
three world records.
- After repeated Olympic frustration since 1988, American speed skater Dan Jansen finally won a gold medal, setting a
world record in the men's 1000 m (1:12.43) in his last Winter
Olympic race.
- Vreni Schneider won a complete
set of medals in alpine skiing and
Manuela Di Centa medaled in all
five cross-country skiing
events. Myriam Bédard won both
women's individual biathlon races.
- Gustav Weder and Donat Acklin became the first repeat winners of
the two-man bobsleigh. Pairs skaters Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov repeated their 1988 Winter Olympics victory.
- A massive Norwegian crowd saw their relay men team being beaten
by the Italians in the final metres of the cross country skiing
relay 4x10 km. The crowd fell silent, but only briefly. Twelve
years later at the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Italian
foursome of Maurilio de Zolt,
Marco Albarello, Giorgio Vanzetta, and Silvio Fauner would be among the last carriers
of the Olympic flame before it was lit
by fellow cross country skier Stefania
Belmondo.
- Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, ice dancing champions ten
years earlier, competed again following relaxation of amateurism rules. (They had turned professional
in the 1980s.)
- Kim Yoon-Mi
became the youngest female and the youngest Winter Olympic Gold
Medalist, as a part of Short
track speed skating ladies relay team for South Korea
.
- The logo of the Games was aurora and indeed some could be seen
from Lillehammer during the Games.
- The
Olympics were broadcast in the U.S. by
television network CBS
- In
his address at the closing ceremony, Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of
the IOC
, named the
Lillehammer games “the best winter games ever”, a characterization
that has yet to be repeated concerning any winter games.
In his
address at the opening ceremony, Samaranch recalled Sarajevo
and its 1984
Winter Olympic Games, at the time in the midst of Yugoslav war of 1991-1995, with an emotive
message: "Our message is stronger than ever: Please stop the
fighting. Stop the killing. Drop your guns." The composition
of the Bosnia and Herzegovina four-man bob team was one Croat, two
Bosniaks and a Serb, mirroring the ethnic diversity of the
country.
- 1.21 million tickets were sold for the games. LOOC estimated
that an additional 500,000 viewed the games for free along the
courses. In addition, 180,000 seats were used by the media and
VIPs.
Medals awarded
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
Venues
Medal count
(
Host nation is highlighted.)
| 1 |
|
11 |
8 |
4 |
23 |
| 2 |
|
10 |
11 |
5 |
26 |
| 3 |
|
9 |
7 |
8 |
24 |
| 4 |
|
7 |
5 |
8 |
20 |
| 5 |
|
6 |
5 |
2 |
13 |
| 6 |
|
4 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
| 7 |
|
3 |
6 |
4 |
13 |
| 8 |
|
3 |
4 |
2 |
9 |
| 9 |
|
2 |
3 |
4 |
9 |
| 10 |
|
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
Participating nations
A record 67 nations participated in the 1994 Winter Olympic Games.
Participating in their first Winter Games were American Samoa,
Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czech Republic,
Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Slovakia,
Trinidad & Tobago, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Most of the new
particpants (9) were due to the break up of the Soviet Union
The 1994 Winter Games were the first following the implementation
of stricter qualifying standards, which prevented representatives
of developing countries from competing without meeting minimum
standards. As a consequence, eleven "mostly warm-weather countries"
signed up to participate in the Games, but were ultimately absent
as none of their athletes succeeded in qualifying. The number of
African athletes fell from nineteen in 1992 to three in 1994:
Lamine Guèye of
Senegal and two
short-track speed skaters from
South Africa. These
rules were, however, not applied to
bobsled
events, enabling the
United States Virgin
Islands,
Monaco,
Trinidad and
Tobago and
Jamaica to compete in
that sport.
See also
References
External links
- Women's Giant Slalom, Slalom & Combined,
Men's Slalom & Giant Slalom & Combined
- Men's Super G, Downhill, Women's Super G and
Downhill
- Nordic combined, biathlon and cross country
skiing
- Ice hockey
- Speed skating
- Ice hockey
- Bobsleigh and luge
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