Nagano (Japan)

The Winter Games returned to Japan 26 years after the Sapporo Olympics. In the fight for the right to host the sports forum, Nagano was ahead of the American Salt Lake City, the Swedish Östersund, the Spanish Jaca and the Italian Aosta. The competition on the island of Honshu was accompanied by heavy snow with rain and fog, due to which some of the starts had to be postponed. In addition, on February 20, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 occurred in Nagano Prefecture - the Olympians were very scared, although no one was injured. At the same time, the Games themselves left a pleasant impression. First of all, thanks to the hospitality of the Japanese and the wonderful audience. In addition, the organizers of the Olympics managed to rein in the general sponsors of the IOC, who were very intrusive during the previous Summer Olympics in 1996.

		Z	WITH	B	Total
1	Germany	12	9	8	29
2	Norway	10	10	5	25
3	Russia	9	6	3	18
4	Canada	6	5	4	15
5	USA	6	3	4	13

Venue: Nagano, Japan
February 7 - 22, 1998
Number of participating countries - 72
Number of participating athletes - 2176 (787 women, 1389 men)
Medal sets - 68
Team competition winner - Germany

Three main characters of the Games according to SE

Dominik Hasek (Czech Republic),
hockey
Hermann Mayer (Austria),
skiing
Larisa Lazutina (Russia),
ski race

BURET EXCEEDS GRETSKY

The number of participants in the Nagano Winter Games exceeded 2,000 athletes for the first time. This happened thanks to a new expansion of the competition program. Women's hockey, snowboarding and curling have joined the family of Winter Olympic sports. But the main event was the agreement between the IOC and the NHL, which for the first time in history allowed players from the strongest hockey league in the world to compete at the Olympics. The latest restrictions on the participation of professionals at the Games have been lifted, and a break has been taken in the NHL regular season. The hockey tournament in Nagano broke all possible TV ratings. Although the CBS television company, which paid $375 million for the right to broadcast the Olympics, was still unhappy with the unsuccessful performance of the Americans and Canadians.

The Russian men's ice hockey team in Nagano was composed entirely of NHL players, with the exception of third goaltender Oleg Shevtsov. The main stars of the team were Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov and Alexey Yashin. Vyacheslav Fetisov, Igor Larionov, Alexander Mogilny, Nikolai Khabibulin, Sergei Zubov and some other famous hockey players refused the invitation to the national team. The refusal was largely caused by the disastrous performance of our “dream team” at the 1996 World Cup, as well as the death in the spring of 1997 of the president of the national hockey federation, Valentin Sych, who fell from a killer’s bullet. Perhaps it was the star refuseniks that were not enough for the Russian team to defeat the Czechs in the final of the 1998 Olympics.

The decisive match of the hockey tournament between the national teams of the Czech Republic and Russia ended with a football score of 1:0 in favor of our opponents. The Czechs, with Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr shining, became Olympic champions. And Russian fans could only console themselves with the phenomenal result of Pavel Bure - in the semi-finals, the captain of the Russian team sent as many as five goals into the Finns' goal.

But the great Canadian scorer Wayne Gretzky, for whom Nagano was the first and last chance to compete at the Olympics, scored only four assists throughout the entire tournament. It got to the point that Canadian national team coach Mark Crawford did not trust the 37-year-old veteran to take the post-match shootout in the semifinals against the Czechs. In that series, Hasek won all five duels against the Maple Leaves, depriving the founders of hockey of a chance for gold. The frustrated Canadian stars were unable to rally in the match for third place with the Finns and were left in Nagano without any medals at all.

TRIUMPH OF SKIERS

In addition to hockey, in February 1998 the whole country watched the Olympic figure skating tournament. In it, Russia won three gold out of four - Ilya Kulik, the couple Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev, as well as the dance duet Oksana Grischuk and Evgeny Platov, did their best. The latter took the second Olympic title in a row in Nagano, despite the fact that Oksana competed with a broken wrist. In addition, two months before the start of the Games, Grischuk unexpectedly announced that she should now be called by the name Pasha (according to one version, so as not to be confused with the Ukrainian singles skater Oksana Baiul). After Nagano 1998, the duo broke up. Grischuk began performing with Alexander Zhulin and returned to her previous name.

The performances of our skiers in Japan turned out to be very successful. Representatives of Russia - Larisa Lazutina, Olga Danilova and Yulia Chepalova collected all the individual gold, in addition, the Russian team won the relay. For 21-year-old Chepalova, this was the first Olympics - it was in Nagano that her star rose. For men, the hero of the cross-country skiing was the Norwegian Bjorn Daly, who, following the results of the 1998 Games, became the most titled athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics - in his collection there are 8 gold and 4 silver medals. Another record was set in the figure skating tournament - 15-year-old American Tara Lipinski became the youngest champion in the individual program in the history of the White Games.

One of the most striking moments of the 1998 Olympics was the incident with the Austrian skier Hermann Mayer. After a terrible fall in the downhill, the Austrian not only returned to the start, but also won gold medals in the super-G and giant slalom. Thanks to this feat, Mayer was given the nickname Herminator, by analogy with the invulnerable movie Terminator. In the luge competition, the public applauded the German Georg Hackl, who won the third Olympics in a row. Hackl's medal turned out to be an important contribution to the German team's treasury - the Germans won the overall standings, ahead of the Norwegians by two golds. Our team dropped to third place for the first time. Even the incredible victory of biathlete Galina Kukleva, who beat the German Uschi Diesl by only 7 tenths of a second in the 7.5 km race, did not help.

CHAMPIONSHIP SPIRIT

The scandal marked the Olympic debut of snowboarding. The first ever Olympic champion in giant slalom, Canadian Ross Rebagliatti, was immediately caught with marijuana. The athlete explained the presence of the drug in his doping test by visiting a party where Ross’s friends allegedly smoked cinsimilla, and Rebagliatti accidentally inhaled the intoxicating smoke. The drug-addicted champion was disqualified but, to everyone's surprise, acquitted two days later. The IOC decided not to escalate the situation and believed the Canadian’s excuses. In addition, it turned out that marijuana is not on the list of prohibited drugs - this misunderstanding was corrected, but the athlete was not punished retroactively.

In general, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch did not like to dwell on the topic of doping and, according to some reports, even thought about legalizing stimulants. But the competition in Nagano was the last Winter Olympics of the Spanish marquis. Soon completely different times will come in sports, and the future of many champions of the Japanese Games will not be as bright as it seemed in 1998. Larisa Lazutina and Olga Danilova will end their careers after doping revelations at the 2002 Olympics; in 2009, Yulia Chepalova will come under the hood of anti-doping services. Another skier - the winner of the 30 km race, Finn Mika Myllula - two years after Nagano would find himself at the center of a high-profile doping scandal, become addicted to alcohol and in 2011 would be found dead in his apartment. The police will conclude that Myllula committed suicide.

German speed skater Claudia Pechstein, who won the 5000 m race at the 1998 Games, will be disqualified at the end of her career on the basis of her “blood passport” data, spend several years in court and eventually prove that her abnormal test results are caused by a hereditary disease. By the way, Pechstein achieved success in Nagano not only thanks to her natural abilities, but also against the background of the technical revolution that occurred in the mid-1990s in this sport. On the eve of the 1998 Games, almost all leading speed skaters began using flap skates with a heel that came off. The novelty, combined with a special running technique, made it possible to increase the length of the skater’s push and his speed. By the time the Olympics began, the Dutch and Germans were the best at using valves. But Russian athletes were not ready for these changes.

Sports represented
Biathlon
Bobsled
Skiing
Curling
Skating
Nordic combined
Ski race
Ski jumping
Luge
Snowboarding
Short track
Figure skating
Freestyle
Hockey

The Japanese city of Nagano is located 220 km northeast of Tokyo. Nagano was elected as the capital of the XVIII Winter Olympic Games at the 97th session of the IOC, held on June 13-16, 1991 in Birmingham.

2,338 athletes took part in the Winter Olympics, including 810 women. The Olympic Games in Nagano became the largest in terms of the number of participants and the number of participating countries - 72. Athletes competed in 14 sports in 68 disciplines. Curling competitions were included in the Olympic Games. Two sets of medals were played for men and women. Also included in the program of the Nagano Olympics were snowboarding competitions - two types of competitions for men and women: giant slalom and half-pipe competition. Of the 72 countries competing for prizes, only 24 were successful, winning 205 medals.

In biathlon competitions, Norwegian athletes won 5 medals - 2 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze. Germany won 5 medals - 2 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze. Team Russia 3 medals, one of each value. In the 7.5 km race, with one penalty, Galina Kukleva took gold. The Russian team was second in the 4x7.5 km relay. Biathlete from Ukraine Elena Petrova won silver in the 15 km race. In the 20 km race, Alexey Aidarov, Belarus, won the bronze medal.

In bobsleigh among twos, the Italians from the first team were the strongest, athletes from the Canada-1 team were second, and Germany-1 were third. In the four-man bean competition, athletes from the Germany-2 team were in the lead, Switzerland-1 was in second place, and Great Britain-1 was in third.

In alpine skiing, 10 sets of awards were competed for. Representatives of 9 countries won 30 medals. Austrian athletes took home 11 medals - 3 gold, 4 silver, 4 bronze. German athletes won 6 awards - 3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze. Norwegian athletes 4 medals - 1 gold and 3 silver. The athletes of Italy had two medals each - gold and silver, France - gold and bronze, and Switzerland - 2 bronze. The US athletes received one medal each - gold, Sweden - silver, Australia - bronze - the only award at the XVIII Winter Olympics in Nagano.

In men's curling, athletes from Switzerland took first place, athletes from Canada were in second place, and Norway was in third place. Among women, the leaders were athletes from Canada, athletes from Denmark were in second place, and athletes from Sweden were in third place.

In Nordic combined in the 90 m springboard discipline and the 15 km race, the champion was Bjerte Engen Vik from Norway, the second was Samppa Lajunen from Finland, and the third place was won by Valery Stolyarov from Russia. In the 90 m springboard and 4 × 5 km relay disciplines, the Norwegian team was in the lead, Finnish athletes were in second place, and France was in third place.

In men's cross-country skiing, Norwegian athletes performed better than others, winning 4 gold and 2 silver medals. Vladimir Smirnov from Kazakhstan showed the third result in the 15 km free style pursuit race, and the fourth result in the 10 km classic style race. Russian Alexey Prokurorov was fourth in the 50 km freestyle race. In the 4x10 km relay, the Russian team showed the fifth result. The Russians took the lead in the women's competition. Larisa Lazutina won 5 Olympic medals - 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal - one medal in each type of competition. Olga Danilova won 2 gold and 1 silver. Yulia Chepalova - 2 gold. Elena Vyalbe - one gold. Irina Taranenko-Terelya from Ukraine showed the fourth result in the 10 km race.

Japanese athletes distinguished themselves in ski jumping, winning 2 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal. Athletes from Finland won 1 gold and 1 silver medal, Germany - 1 silver, Austria - 2 bronze.

Luge sport was conquered by German athletes, winning 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal. USA athletes won a silver and bronze medal, Italy - 1 silver, Austria - 1 bronze.

In speed skating it was established 5 World records and 5 Olympic records!

In snowboarding, four sets of awards (12 medals) were shared by representatives of 8 countries. Athletes from Germany won gold and silver medals, Switzerland - gold and bronze, Norway - 2 silver, USA - 2 bronze; one athletes each: Canada and France - gold, Italy - silver, Austria - bronze.

In figure skating, the strongest were Ilya Kulik from Russia; Tara Lipinski from the USA; Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev from Russia, in sports pairs; Oksana (Pasha) Grischuk and Evgeniy Platonov from Russia, in sports dances.

Johnny Mosley from the USA was the leader in the men's mogul freestyle competition. Second and third places went to athletes from Finland. For women, the champion was Tae Satoya from Japan, second place was taken by an athlete from Germany, and third place by Norway. In men's ski acrobatics, Erik Bergust from the USA won gold, second place went to an athlete from France, and third place went to an athlete from Belarus, Dmitry Dashinsky. Among women, Nikki Stone from the USA took first place, an athlete from China took second, and Switzerland took third. Ukrainians Tatyana Kozachenko and Alla Tsuper showed fourth and fifth results, respectively.

In men's ice hockey, masters from the Czech Republic took first place, the Russian national team took second place, Finland took third place, and Belarus took fifth place. Among women, American hockey players became the strongest. Canadian athletes took second place, Finnish athletes took third place.

In the men's short track speed skating championship, Korean athletes won gold and silver medals, Japan and Canada won gold and bronze medals, and China won 2 silver and a bronze medals. Among the women, the strongest athletes were from Korea - 2 gold and 2 bronze, from Canada - gold and bronze medals, from China - 3 silver.

In the overall standings, the largest number of medals at the XVIII Winter Olympic Games in Nagano were won by German athletes - 29 awards (12 gold, 9 silver, 8 bronze). Athletes from Norway were second with 25 medals (10 gold, 10 silver, 5 bronze). The third in the total amount of medals are Russian athletes with 18 medals (9 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze). Ukraine showed 18 results in the overall standings, winning 1 silver medal (biathlete Elena Petrova).

From February 7 to 22, 1998, the XVIII Winter Olympic Games were held in Nagano (Japan). The program included 14 sports and 68 disciplines. 72 countries participated (2338 athletes: 1528 men and 810 women).

Long before the start of the XVIII Winter Olympic Games, experts predicted that any country would need 11-12 gold medals to win a team victory in Nagano. And this forecast was completely justified. After the competition in all 68 numbers of the program has ended. The German delegation won 12 medals of the highest standard, Norway - 10, Russia - 9.

Russian skiers achieved phenomenal success, unprecedented in Olympic history, winning all five races on the most difficult tracks in Hakuba. Three gold medals - two for victories in individual races and one in the relay race, as well as silver and bronze medals were brought from Japan to the city of Odintsovo near Moscow by Larisa Lazutina. This athlete accomplished a real feat, for which immediately upon returning to her homeland, by Decree of the President of the country, she was awarded the title “Hero of the Russian Federation.”

Representative of the Vladimir region Olga Danilova returned from Japan as a two-time Olympic champion. It was she who, ahead of her rivals at a 15-kilometer distance, won the first gold medal played in Nagano and gave additional confidence to her teammates, with whom she excelled in the relay race.

The real discovery of the Games was Yulia Chepalova. The victory in the 30-kilometer race by this young Muscovite, who was born in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and studied at the Khabarovsk State Institute of Physical Culture, was, of course, unexpected for many. But only for the coaches: they saw in Yulia the future leader of our women’s ski team.

Elena Vyalbe and Nina Gavrylyuk deserve special words of gratitude. They failed to win the individual races. But they shone in their respective stages of the relay and deservedly received gold medals. From now on, both Elena and Nina are three-time Olympic champions, since Gavrylyuk in 1988 and 1994, and Vyalbe in 1992 and 1994 already shared with their friends the joy of victory in relay races.

The skaters contributed three gold medals to the total. This is certainly an outstanding achievement. Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev became champions in pair skating, Pasha Grischuk and Evgeny Platov in ice dancing, and Ilya Kulik in men's singles. All of them showed the highest skill and fortitude. Only after the end of the competition did it become clear, for example, that Grischuk competed with a broken wrist! She and her wonderful partner were the first in history to win two Winter Olympics in a row.

Photo: AFP

Biathlete from Tyumen Galina Kukleva won another gold medal for Russia. The 7.5-kilometer race, which she won, turned out to be one of the most dramatic. After all, at the finish line the champion and silver medalist were separated by only 0.7 seconds. An elusive moment in which years of painstaking work were concentrated.

So, 11 Russian athletes became champions of the XVIII Winter Olympic Games.

Information provided by the Russian Olympic Committee.

The location of the 1998 Olympics was determined at a meeting of the International Committee in 1991. Salt Lake City was a strong competitor for Nagano. However, the commission decided that two games in a row should not be played in the United States. After all, the competition took place in 1996 in Atlanta.

In 1998, 72 countries took part. In particular, only athletes from South Africa and Kenya came from Africa. Traditionally, this is less than half of the states that send their teams to the summer games. This is primarily due to the high cost of training athletes in many winter disciplines. For example, it requires the construction of several types of tracks. In addition, many countries simply do not have suitable weather conditions, which makes training even more expensive.

5 countries sent their athletes to the games for the first time - Macedonia, Kenya, Uruguay, Azerbaijan and Venezuela.

According to tradition, the game was opened by the head of state - Emperor Akihito of Japan.

There have been changes in the program of games compared to earlier competitions. In particular, competitions were organized in two new sports - curling and skateboarding. And in hockey, not only men's but also women's teams began to compete.

In the unofficial medal standings, Germany took first place, which came as a surprise to sports experts. Athletes from this country won 29 medals of various denominations. Next with a slight lag of 4 medals was Norway. Russia came third, ahead of Canada and the United States, which can be considered a good result, given the departure of some Soviet athletes to the teams of the former Soviet republics, as well as the general difficult state of the economy, which also affected the financing of sports.

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Tip 2: Where the 1998 Winter Olympics took place

The Winter Olympic Games were first held in 1924, when 4 sports were included and 14 sets of awards were awarded. By the end of the last century, the games of the XVIII Winter Olympics were already held in 7 sports, and the number of medal sets being played out increased to 68. This meeting of Olympians took place in one of the cities of the central island of Japan.

The last one of the last century could take place in one of three European cities, in the American Salt Lake City or the Japanese Nagano - five applications for its holding were submitted to the International Olympic Committee. Voting required five rounds, at the end of which the Japanese city was ahead by a slim margin of just four votes out of 88. This was the third, and so far the last, competition held in the land of the rising sun. Before this, the 1964 Games were held in Tokyo, and in 1972 the XI Winter Olympics took place in Sapporo.

Nagano is a relatively young city, built in 1897 closer to the west coast of the largest of the Japanese islands (Honshu). In 1966, it was enlarged by merging with 8 nearby municipalities and now has almost 400 thousand residents. After, in 1999, the city became the administrative center of the prefecture with the same name, Nagano. It has a university and a Buddhist center, as well as light industrial and mechanical engineering enterprises. To this day, Nagano remains the southernmost capital of the Winter Olympics ever held. For the games, the city built the M-Wawe indoor speed skating rink, the Wakasato multi-purpose sports arena and the Aqua Wing indoor ice arena, which was turned into a water sports center after the Olympics.

The XVIII Winter Olympic Games were held in Nagano from February 7 to 22, 1998 and brought together almost 2,200 athletes from 72 countries. The competition was opened by Emperor Akihito of Japan, and awards were awarded in 14 sports. The teams from Germany (29), Norway (25) and Russia (18) were able to win the most medals. Of the 9 highest awards of our team, 5 were won by skiers. In this sport, the advantage of the Russians was absolute - they took all the first places. Three awards of the highest standard were brought to Russia by figure skaters who lost the championship in only one discipline.

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The Japanese city of Nagano was chosen as the capital of the 1998 Winter Olympics at the session of the International Olympic Committee in Birmingham in 1991. Previously, the Winter Olympic Games were held in Japan 26 years ago in Sapporo.

This Olympics in Nagano was the largest of the previous Winter Games in terms of the number of athletes and participating countries. 72 countries and more than 2,300 athletes took part in it. On the eve of the Games, the UN General Assembly called on countries to suspend all internal and international conflicts. The Olympics emblem was a snowflake flower with representatives of a particular sport depicted on each petal.

The main surprise of these competitions was the earthquake of magnitude 5 that occurred on February 20. Fortunately, none of the Olympians were injured. An important event was the agreement between the NHL and the IOC, which allowed athletes from the strongest hockey league to compete at the Olympics.

Athletes at the XVIII Games competed in 14 sports. For the first time, the Olympic program included competitions in curling, snowboarding and women's hockey. Athletes from exotic countries for winter sports - Brazil, Uruguay and Bermuda - took part in the Olympic competitions in Nagano. Japanese Ioniko Kasai made a demonstration ski jump, becoming the first woman to receive such an honor.

A record number of medals at that time was played - 68 sets. The largest number of medals (29) were won by athletes from Germany, athletes from Norway were second with 25 medals, and Russians were third with 18 medals. Russian skiers managed to win in all disciplines. Larisa Lazutina won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze. The hosts of the Olympics took only 7th place in the medal standings.

On the eve of the Nagano Olympics, a new design of a skate with a heel coming off was invented, which allowed athletes to rewrite their world records in speed skating. American 15-