The , officially known as the '''XVII Olympic Winter Games,''' were celebrated in
1994 in
Lillehammer ,
Norway . Other candidate cities were
Anchorage, Alaska ,
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} It is notable for being the last Winter Olympic Games to date to have been held in a town (Lillehammer's population being just 25,000), rather than the large cities which have held the subsequent three Winter Olympic Games.
- When the construction of the Lysgårdsbakkene jumping hills started in 1992, the hills had to be moved some meters North so that the American broadcaster CBS could get the best pictures available from their pre-chosen location
- 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 later banned from competitive figure skating by the U.S. Figure Skating Association for life.
- The day of the opening ceremonies, Art Thieves stole '' The Scream '' from the National Museum in Oslo.
- 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 Ski Jumper Stein Gruben . Former World Champion Ole Gunnar Fidjestøl was supposed to do this jump, but he got injured on one of the training jumps a few days before the opening ceremony.
- Local hero Johann Olav Koss won three Speed Skating events, setting three world records.
- After repeated Olympic frustration since 1988 , American speed skater Dan Jansen finally won a gold medal, setting a world record in the men's 1000 m (1:12.43) in his last Winter Olympic race.
- 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 victory.
- 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. Twelve years later at the opening cermonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics , the Italian foursome of Maurilio De Zolt , Marco Albarello , Giorgio Vanzetta , and Silvio Fauner would be among the last carriers of the Olympic Flame before it was lit by fellow cross country skier Stefania Belmondo .
- 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 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. In his address at the opening ceremony, Samaranch recalled Sarajevo and its 1984 Winter Olympic Games , at the time in the midst of Yugoslav War of 1991-1995, with an emotive message: "Our message is stronger than ever: Please stop the fighting. Stop the killing. Drop your guns." The composition of the Bosnia and Herzegovina four-man bob team was one Croat, two Bosniaks and a Serb, mirroring the ethnic diversity of the country.
- 1.21 million tickets were sold for the games. LOOC estimated that an additional 500,000 viewed the games for free along the courses. In addition, 180,000 seats were used by the media and VIPs.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
(''Host nation is highlighted.'')
