It had been 26 years since the Olympic Winter Games had been held in the Orient, those also in Japan
on the northern island of Hokkaido. Nagano had been an "upset" choice
over the more favored selections of Salt Lake City and Östersund. But
the Japanese typically put on a wonderful show. And it was much quieter
in Nagano – there was no
The Games were severely hampered, however, by the weather of Nagano Prefecture. Snow, rain and fog played havoc with the
alpine skiing schedule(/games/sport
games?editionid=46&sport_id=ASK), causing the
men's downhill,
one of the feature events of the Games, to be cancelled and
re-scheduled four times. Going into the second week of the Olympics,
there was some concern that the alpine skiing schedule could not be
finished before the Closing Ceremony. One run of the
four-man bobsled also had to be omitted because of weather.
A number of new events made their Olympic début in Nagano, probably foremost among these being
women's ice hockey,
which was won by the United States team in a mild upset over the
favored Canadians. Snowboarding and curling also were new to the
program. Snowboarding had four events – men's and women's halfpipe and
giant slalom. In the men's giant slalom, the biggest controversy of the
Nagano Olympics occurred when Canadian
Ross Rebagliati
won the gold medal, only to be disqualified two days later when his
doping test came back positive for marijuana. He and the Canadian team
appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Rebagliati was
reinstated, and allowed to keep his gold medal.
In
men's ice hockey,
the big story was the presence of the top professional players in the
world for the first time ever. The National Hockey League (NHL) closed
down its mid-season schedule for two weeks to allow all the pros to
represent their countries, reminiscent of the "Dream Team" of NBA
players at Barcelona. The difference in ice hockey, however, was that
the top players were not solely from one nation, but were spread among
several hockey powers – Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland,
and the Czech Republic. Canada looked to restore its lost dominance in
the sport by having its pros bring back a gold medal, but it was not to
be. The two favorites, the United States and Canada, went out early,
and neither won a medal. The final came down to Russia against the
Czech Republic, and the Czechs won in a slight upset, aided by the
superb goaltending of
Dominik Hašek
of the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL. Led by Hašek, the Czech team
defeated successively the three greatest hockey nations in Olympic
history – Canada, Russia, and the United States.
Norway's
Bjørn Dæhlie
added to his list of Olympic records by winning four medals and three
golds, to bring his overall Olympic total to 12 medals and 8 gold
medals, all records for the Olympic Winter Games. Russia's
Larisa Lazutina
won the most medals at Nagano, with five in women's nordic skiing. She
and Dæhlie both won three gold medals, the only athletes to pull off
the trifecta in Nagano.
Also dominant at Nagano were the Dutch speed skaters, whose men won nine of 15 Olympic medals, and four events.
Marianne Timmer also added two golds in the women's
1,000 and
1,500. Germany's
Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
won three medals in speed skating, bringing her Olympic career total to
eight, equalling the Olympic speed skating record of her countrywoman
Karia Kania.
In alpine skiing,
Katja Seizinger (GER) won three medals, the third consecutive Olympic Winter Games at which she had won alpine medals, equalling the mark of
Alberto Tomba of Italy. Tomba also competed at Nagano, but failed to finish in both the
giant slalom and
slalom, ending his remarkable Olympic career that began in
1988 at Calgary. Taken from http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/winter/1998/.
