The , officially known as the '''XIII Olympic Winter Games''', were held in
1980 in
Lake Placid, New York ,
United States Of America . Another candidate city was
Vancouver -
Garibaldi ,
British Columbia ,
Canada ; they withdrew before the final vote.
- This was the Second Time the Games were held in Lake Placid.
- First use of artificial snow in Olympic competition.
- Although they did not get any medals, The People's Republic Of China returned to the Olympics Games after the IOC agreed to designate the ROC " Chinese Taipei ".
- Ingemar Stenmark won both the giant slalom and the slalom.
- Hanni Wenzel won the women's giant slalom and slalom, making Liechtenstein the smallest country to produce an Olympic champion.
- Ulrich Wehling of the East Germany and Irina Rodnina won their respective events for the third time.
- Aleksandr Tikhonov of the USSR earned his fourth straight gold medal.
- Nikolay Zimyatov of the USSR earned three gold medals in cross-country skiing.
- Eric Heiden won all five speed skating races at all distances, a new record for individual gold medals won at a single Olympics.
- Robin Cousins won gold for Great Britain in the men's ice skating
- An upstart United States Ice Hockey team, made up primarily of collegiate players, won the gold medal, defeating the heavily favored Soviet team and then Finland in the medal round. Their defeat of the Soviet team in the medal round became known as the " Miracle On Ice " in the US press. A film about the event, called '' Miracle '', was released in 2004.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
(''Host nation in .'')
