1994 Winter Olympics

{{Olympics infobox |

  Name                   = XVII Olympic Winter Games |
  Logo                   = 1994_wolympics_logo.png |
  Size                   = 200 |
  Optional caption       =  |

Host city = Lillehammer, Norway |

  Nations participating  = 67 |
  Athletes participating = 1737 (1215 men, 522 women) |

Events = 61 in 6 sports | Opening ceremony = February 12, 1994 | Closing ceremony = February 27, 1994 | Officially opened by = HM The King, Harald V | Athlete's Oath = Vegard Ulvang | Judge's Oath = Kari Karing | Olympic Torch = HRH The Crown Prince, Haakon | Stadium = Lysgårdsbakkene |The 1994 Winter Olympics, 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. [1].

Highlights

* 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.
* 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 in his last 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.
* 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. 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 Croatian, two Bosniaks and a Serbian, mirroring the ethnic diversity of the country.
*

Medals awarded

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:{
* Alpine skiing
* Biathlon
* Bobsleigh
* Cross-country skiing
* Figure skating
* Freestyle skiing