The , officially known as the '''XVII Olympic Winter Games,''' were celebrated in
1994 in
Lillehammer ,
Norway . Other candidate cities were
Anchorage ,
USA ;
Östersund /
Åre ,
Sweden ; and
Sofia ,
Bulgaria . In 1986 the IOC voted to change the schedule of the Olympic Games so that the summer and winter games would be arranged in alternating even-numbered years. Lillehammer won the right to host the event in
September 1988 in
Seoul before the opening ceremony of the
1988 Summer Olympics . The Lillehammer Games were held in 1994, the only time the Winter Games have been staged two years after the preceding games.
The Lillehammer Olympics are still considered to this day by sport specialists and Olympic officials as one of the greatest Winter Games ever, and it ranks among the greatest sporting events in history.
{Link without Title} .
- 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 a Ski Jumper .
- Local hero Johann Olav Koss won three Speed Skating events, setting three world records.
- 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
- A massive Norwegian crowd saw their relay team being beaten by the Italians in the final metres of the cross country skiing relay. The crowd fell silent, but only briefly.
- 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 . In the end Nancy Kerrigan went on to win the silver medal, behind Oksana Baiul of Ukraine . Tonya Harding finished 8th and was banned from competitive figure skating by the U.S. Figure Skating Association for life.
- 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 .)
- The popular Norwegian band A-ha performed their song, "Shapes That Go Together".
- The logo of the Games was Aurora and indeed some could be seen from Lillehammer during the Games.
- The Olympics were broadcast in the USA by television network CBS
- In his address at the closing ceremony, Juan Antonio Samaranch , president of the IOC , named the Lillehammer games “the best winter games ever”, a characterization that has yet to be repeated concerning any winter games.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
(''Host nation is highlighted.'')
