1994 Winter Olympics

XVII Olympic Winter Games
The emblem is a stylized aurora borealis (Northern lights) and snow crystals. Below are the Olympic rings and the title "Lillehammer '94".
Host city	Lillehammer, Norway
Nations participating	67
Athletes participating	1737 (1215 men, 522 women)
Events	61 in 6 sports
Opening ceremony	February 12
Closing ceremony	February 27
Officially opened by	King Harald V of Norway
Athlete's Oath	Vegard Ulvang
Judge's Oath	Kari Kåring
Olympic Torch	HRH The Crown Prince, Haakon
Stadium	Lysgårdsbakkene Stadion

The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially the XVII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway. Lillehammer's winning bid was announced in September 1988 in Seoul before the opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympics. 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 timing of the Lillehammer winter games was unique. In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (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. 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.^[1]

IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch stated at the closing ceremony that Lillehammer Olympics was the best Olympic Winter Games ever.^[2] Samaranch had an informal tradition of declaring every Olympics the best ever, with the exception of the troubled 1996 Summer Olympics;^[3] he decided to stop using the phrase before the 1998 Winter Olympics.^[4]

It was the first Olympic Games to have the Olympic Truce in effect.^[5]

As of 2010 Lillehammer still ranks as the most watched winter Olympics on television in the United States, due to the fallout from the Tonya Harding attack on Nancy Kerrigan.^[6]

1994 Winter Olympics Bidding Results [7]
City	NOC Name	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3
Lillehammer	Norway	25	30	45
Östersund/Åre	Sweden	19	33	39
Anchorage, Alaska	United States	23	22	-
Sofia	Bulgaria	17	-	-

Highlights

• When the construction of the Lysgårdsbakken 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.
• Figure skater Tonya Harding finished 8th and was later banned from competitive figure skating for life by the U.S. Figure Skating Association.
• In the end, at Hamar Olympic Amphitheatre, Nancy Kerrigan won the silver medal, behind Oksana Baiul of Ukraine, in a close 5-4 decision.
• In the day of the opening ceremonies, art thieves stole Edvard Munch's masterpiece The Scream from the National Museum in Oslo,capítal of the host country.
• 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, Presidents of the International Olympic Committee, 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 Olympics, 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."^[8] He said that following a moment of silence.^[8] 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

• Hafjell - Women's Giant Slalom, Slalom & Combined, Men's Slalom & Giant Slalom & Combined
• Kvitfjell - Men's Super G, Downhill, Women's Super G and Downhill
• Birkebeineren Skistadion - Nordic combined, biathlon and cross country skiing
• Lysgårdsbakken - Ski jumping, the opening and the closing ceremonies
• Fjellhallen - Ice hockey
• Vikingskipet - Speed skating
• Hamar OL-Amfi - Figure skating, short track
• Håkons Hall - Ice hockey
• Hunderfossen - Bobsleigh and luge
• Kanthugen Freestyle Arena - Freestyle skiing

Medal count

(Host nation is highlighted.)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia	11	8	4	23
2	Norway	10	11	5	26
3	Germany	9	7	8	24
4	Italy	7	5	8	20
5	United States	6	5	2	13
6	South Korea	4	1	1	6
7	Canada	3	6	4	13
8	Switzerland	3	4	2	9
9	Austria	2	3	4	9
10	Sweden	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 participants (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.^[9]

See also

• 1994 Winter Paralympics

• Winter Olympic Games
• Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• List of IOC country codes
• Norwegian Olympic Museum

Notes

References

• "Lillehammer 1994". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. http://www.olympic.org/en/content/Olympic-Games/All-Past-Olympic-Games/Winter/Lillehammer-1994. 
• "All the Medallists since 1896". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. http://www.olympic.org/en/content/All-Olympic-results-since-1896/?AthleteName=&Games=1334122&Country=&Sport=&TargetResults=true&resultsPageIPP=30. 
• Olympic Review 1994 - Official results

External links

• "Lillehammer 1994". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. http://www.olympic.org/en/content/Olympic-Games/All-Past-Olympic-Games/Winter/Lillehammer-1994. 
• Norwegian Olympics Museum (in Norwegian)
• The program of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics