1998 Winter Olympics

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XVIII. winter Olympics
1998 Winter Olympics logo
Venue: Nagano ( Japan )
Stadion: Nagano Olympic Stadium
Opening ceremony: February 7, 1998
Closing ceremony: February 22, 1998
Opened by: Emperor Akihito
Olympic oath : Kenji Ogiwara (athlete)
Junko Hiramatsu (referee)
Disciplines: 14 (7 sports)
Competitions: 68
Countries: 72
Athletes: 2302, 814 of them women
Lillehammer 1994
Salt Lake City 2002
Medal table
space country G S. B. Ges.
1 GermanyGermany Germany 12 9 8th 29
2 NorwayNorway Norway 10 10 5 25th
3 RussiaRussia Russia 9 6th 3 18th
4th CanadaCanada Canada 6th 5 4th 15th
5 United StatesUnited States United States 6th 3 4th 13
6th NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands 5 4th 2 11
7th JapanJapan Japan 5 1 4th 10
8th AustriaAustria Austria 3 5 9 17th
9 Korea SouthSouth Korea South Korea 3 1 2 6th
10 ItalyItaly Italy 2 6th 2 10
... ... ... ... ...
12 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland 2 2 3 7th
Complete medal table
Olympic medals

The 1998 Winter Olympics (also called the XVIII Winter Olympics ) were held in the Japanese city ​​of Nagano . Other candidate cities were Aosta (Italy), Jaca (Spain), Östersund (Sweden) and Salt Lake City (USA). Nagano was elected host on June 15, 1991 in the fifth ballot.

Host city

Nagano is the most southerly location of the Winter Olympics to date. Other candidate cities for the 1998 Olympic Games were Aosta in Italy, Jaca in Spain, Östersund in Sweden and Salt Lake City (USA). The host city election took place in Birmingham , United Kingdom on June 15, 1991. This was the 97th IOC session. Nagano won by just four votes over Salt Lake City. The main reason for this result was the “Atlanta factor”, since the 1996 Summer Olympics were already planned on American soil, in Atlanta .

Election results

1998 Winter Olympics election results
city country Round 1 round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5
Nagano JapanJapan Japan 21st - 30th 36 46
Salt Lake City United StatesUnited States United States 15th 59 27 29 42
Ostersund SwedenSweden Sweden 18th - 25th 23 -
Jaca SpainSpain Spain 19th - 5 - -
Aosta ItalyItaly Italy 15th 29 - - -

Round 2 was a casting vote between the two applicants with the fewest votes (15).

buildings

Among other things, the two ice hockey stadiums Nagano-shi Wakasato Tamokuteki Sports Arena (“Big Hat”) and Nagano Undōkōen Sōgō Undōjō Sōgō Shimin Pool (“Aqua Wing”) were built. The opening and closing ceremonies took place in the Nagano Olympic Stadium.

mascot

The official mascots of the games were the Snowlets , four owls named Sukki, Nokki, Lekki and Tsukki. The design of the mascots came from the agency Landor Associates , the owls were supposed to symbolize wisdom as well as the connection to nature and to the historical Greek Olympic Games.

Competition program

68 competitions (37 for men, 29 for women and 2 mixed competitions) in 7 sports / 14 disciplines were held. That was 7 competitions, 1 sport and 2 disciplines more than in Lillehammer in 1994 . The changes are detailed below:

  • Curling was included in the Olympic program as a team sport for men and women after it was a demonstration sport several times and already once Olympic in 1924.
  • The women's tournament was added to ice hockey .
  • In the Nordic Combined team competition, the 3 × 10 km relay becomes a 4 × 5 km relay
  • Snowboarding became part of the Olympic program with halfpipe and giant slalom for both men and women.

Olympic sports / disciplines

Number of competitions in brackets

Time schedule

Time schedule
discipline Sat
7.
Sun.
8.
Mon.
9.
Tuesday
10.
Wed
11.
Thursday
12.
Fri.
13.
Sat
14.
Sun.
15.
Mon.
16.
Tuesday
17th
Wed.
18.
Thursday
19.
Fr.
20.
Sat.
21.
Sun.
22.
Decision-
disk-
applications
February
Olympic rings without rims.svg Opening ceremony
Biathlon pictogram.svg biathlon 1 1 1 1 1 1 6th
Bobsleigh pictogram.svg bob 1 1 2
Curling pictogram.svg Curling 2 2
Ice hockey pictogram.svg ice Hockey 1 1 2
Ice skating Figure skating pictogram.svg figure skating 1 1 1 1 4th
Speed ​​skating pictogram.svg Speed ​​skating 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 10
Short track speed skating pictogram.svg Short track 2 1 3 6th
Luge pictogram.svg Luge 1 1 1 3
Skiing Freestyle skiing pictogram.svg Freestyle skiing 2 2 4th
Alpine skiing pictogram.svg Alpine skiing 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 10

Nordic skiing
Nordic combined pictogram.svg Nordic combination   1 1 2
Cross country skiing pictogram.svg Cross-country skiing 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 10
Ski jumping pictogram.svg Ski jumping 1   1 1   3
Snowboarding pictogram.svg Snowboard 1 2 1   4th
Olympic rings without rims.svg Closing ceremony
decisions 3 3 5 7th 4th 3 4th 6th 5 6th 4th 5 5 6th 2 68
Sat
7.
Sun.
8.
Mon.
9.
Tuesday
10.
Wed
11.
Thursday
12.
Fri.
13.
Sat
14.
Sun.
15.
Mon.
16.
Tuesday
17th
Wed.
18.
Thursday
19.
Fr.
20.
Sat.
21.
Sun.
22.
February

Color legend

  • Opening ceremony
  • Competition day (no decisions)
  • Competition day (x decisions)
  • Exhibition running (figure skating gala)
  • Closing ceremony
  • Competitions

    Attendees

    Athletes from 72 nations competed for the Nagano Winter Games. For the first time Azerbaijan , Kenya , Macedonia , Uruguay and Venezuela took part in the winter games.

    Europe (1453 from 45 nations)
    America (360 athletes from 12 nations)
    Asia (333 athletes from 10 nations)
    Oceania (31 athletes from 2 nations)
    Africa (3 athletes from 2 nations)
    (participating athletes) * Participation in winter games for the first time

    Ceremonies

    Opening ceremony

    The games were officially opened by the Japanese Emperor Akihito . The last torchbearer was the Japanese figure skater Midori Itō . The Nordic combined athlete Kenji Ogiwara and the figure skating referee Junko Hiramatsu from Japan took the Olympic oath .

    Closing ceremony

    The Olympic flag was presented by Tasuku Tsukada , Mayor of Nagano, to Deedee Corradini , Mayor of Salt Lake City.

    this and that

    • Due to the many impending roadblocks in the Olympic city and other host cities, their residents had to obtain driving permits in order to still be able to pass such blocked roads. The population was not happy, the people did not want to be persuaded to use public transport during the games.
    • IOC President Samaranch opened the main print media press center on January 29 (for 2,800 journalists and photographers). Two Japanese newspapers ("Sankei" and "Sankei Sports") published a report in words and pictures of a sample of the opening ceremony, whereupon their accreditation was withdrawn for the time being, but then returned. However, they were not allowed to report on the opening ceremony with their own journalists.
    • With regard to the snowboard premiere, board manufacturer “Burton” paid around US $ 167,000 in gold bonuses, a total of a gold medal in this profession was worth US $ 834,000.
    • Although it was the second Olympic Games in Japan, the Olympic anthem was sung in Japanese for the first time.
    • Due to the expensive ticket prices for the ice hockey matches (the preliminary round match between Austria and Slovakia could be attended with tickets from 1,200 to 2,800 schillings), the request from Austrian fans remained under 30 people.
    • In the provisional line-up of 132 German Olympic participants, only one man from the DSV was included as of January 21 : slalom specialist Alois Vogl , after all , Markus Eberle was allowed to start after meeting the standards (7th place in the Kitzbühel slalom); On February 2, the German NOK had rejected a petition for clemency for Stefan Krauss and Andreas Ertl , who had not met these requirements (twice in the top 15 or once in the top 8). (Rainer Mutschler announced that he would retire from his position as head coach of the men at the end of the season and become alpine boss.)
    • The Swiss men also contested a qualification - and curiously, it was (after 1988 and 1992) William Besse again who was unable to qualify.
    • During the men's slalom on February 21, there was a short earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale; It just happened during the run of Mario Reiter , who dropped out, but did not attribute this to the natural event. The TV reporters sitting on 30 m high steel scaffolding towers felt more uncomfortable.

    Financial / TV and media

    • The IOC collected US $ 550 million for the TV rights, of which CBS paid 406 million (other figures are over 500 million) for the US rights and showed 190 hours, mostly canned, with sports without US medal chances were almost completely ignored. (In 1964, ABC had secured the US rights for US $ 600,000.) However, with only 16.4% instead of the hoped-for 19.5% audience rating of all US households, “CBS” experienced the lowest level since 1968. This was mainly due to the fact that it was the lowest number of US households on the premature failure of the US ice hockey team, which could no longer be improved by the quota hit in the women's freestyle on February 20. CBS had to give its advertising partners "reparation spots". Although the profit of US $ 40 million (19 minutes of one hour was spent on advertising, 30 seconds of which cost US $ 500,000), the hoped-for improvement in the station's image did not materialize. Chief Director Rick Gentile was disappointed by the negative mood among viewers about his station's coverage. According to a survey, 86% of respondents were not interested in these games, which was partly due to the time difference (14 hours on the east and 17 on the west coast).
    • The ORF had rented its own satellite for its television program and planned 200 hours of broadcasting time, summaries of the most important events were planned in a ten-minute loop from 6:00 to 10:00 and at 12:00. From 6 p.m. to 7:25 p.m., an “Olympiastudio”, presented from Vienna but produced in Nagano, was set up with background reports, analyzes and interviews looking back on the previous day and looking ahead to the night ahead. So-called "Olympic telegrams" should be broadcast on the radio on Ö3 from 5 to 9 o'clock and live reports during the night. There was also a “Nagano sports magazine” on the Internet. 50 employees were deployed under the direction of the sports department, Gerhard Zimmer.
    • Eurosport broadcast all competitions live or with a time delay from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with the focus on ice hockey, figure skating, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon, snowboarding, freestyle, bobsleigh and tobogganing. The ice hockey top game of the day was on the program from 10 p.m. to 11:45 p.m.
    • ARD and ZDF reported together again, with the live reporting usually starting at 1 a.m. and ending at 3 p.m.

    Web links

    Commons : 1998 Winter Olympics  - collection of images, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ^ "In Nagano, Olympic discontent is growing" in "Tiroler Tageszeitung" No. 6 of January 9, 1998, page 26; POS .: below
    2. "Gold is worth ten million" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 7, 1998, page 26
    3. ^ "Nagano topic of conversation" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 7, 1998, page 21
    4. ^ Column "Sport Mix" with subtitle "Number of the day" in "Tiroler Tageszeitung" No. 17 of January 22, 1998, page 29; POS .: Column 5, penultimate title
    5. ^ "World Cup Diary" heading; second contribution, in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of January 10, 1998, page 25; POS .: bottom left
    6. ^ Rubric "Topic of conversation Olympia", last article, in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 3, 1998, page 21; POS .: bottom left
    7. ^ Glossary "Sport Mix" with subtitle "Question of the day" in "Tiroler Tageszeitung" No. 32 of February 9, 1998, page 25; POS .: column 5, below
    8. ^ "Olympia diary" with the title "Under Mario Reiter the earth shook" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 23, 1998, page 23; POS .: second big title
    9. Box with the title "Olympia" with the heading "Goldgrube TV -rechte" in "Tiroler Tageszeitung" No. 11 of January 15, 1998, page 25; POS .: Column 1
    10. ^ "The bankruptcy with the quota" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 21, 1998, page 26; POS .: columns 4 and 5, below
    11. ^ "Olympia on TV" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 7, 1998, page 27