home
Strategies
18 Winter Olympic Games 1998. Nagano Olympics

18 Winter Olympic Games 1998. Nagano Olympics

16.09.2021

Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998 - the eighteenth in a row - has become truly iconic for world sports. It was on the eve of the Games in Japan that the UN General Assembly, in its resolution, for the first time in history, de facto called on states to suspend not only international, but even internal conflicts. Finally, the unwritten ban on wars at the time when the Olympics is taking place, known from the annals of Ancient Greece, has finally “earned”.

Nagano - medal count

The Nagano Olympics hosted 2,338 athletes, of which 810 were women. It became the most massive in terms of the number of participants and countries. In total, athletes from seventy-two countries came to Japan, who competed in fourteen sports and sixty-eight disciplines. For the first time, the Olympics in Nagano played curling medals: two sets - for men and women. The debut of the Games was for snowboarding events such as giant slalom and half-pipe races. Of the seventy-two countries competing for prizes, only twenty-four have been successful, earning two hundred and five medals.

In the overall standings, athletes from Germany won the largest number of awards at the Nagano Olympics: they had twenty-nine awards, including twelve gold, nine silver, eight bronze. The Norwegians were second with twenty-five, and the Russians were third with eighteen medals.

First time in Nagano

The last winter games of the century have become a kind of bridge to the future. It was the Nagano Olympics that paved the way for such sports as snowboarding, without which it is already difficult to imagine modern world competitions of this magnitude, for somewhat exotic curling and women's light hockey. At these games, the first test was made of valves with a detachable heel and sent to the archive a book of previous records. Both athletes and spectators were truly amazed by the new skates, which were developed by the Dutch and introduced by the Canadians. Their idea, like all ingenious ones, was simple: the creators decided not to fix the blade tightly to the boot anymore, but on the contrary - to make it movable. It was this small revolution that caused all previous records to fall and the tables had to be compiled again.

For the first time on Japanese soil, surprisingly reliable and durable Kevlar equipment was tested. For two weeks the public watched the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Hockey, played for the first time in the history of the Games by professionals from the NHL, drew packed stadiums.

The Nagano Olympics were the first to host women's ice hockey competitions. The Americans became the champions, the Canadian team was in second place, and the Finnish team won the bronze. The 1998 Games were a step into the future for the White Olympiad, whose popularity year by year was increasingly inferior to its summer counterpart, largely due to the lack of new types of competitions. However, the prevalence of debutants still fell short of becoming competitions of this level. Both the ability to hit a bat on an icy target, and hockey among women, and skating on a snow board were practiced to a greater extent only in a few countries in the world. And their presence at such a large-scale sports forum as the Nagano Olympics was explained, oddly enough, only by its spectacularity.

Mascots of the 1998 Olympics

The wise Japanese chose four "snowlets" as mascots: these were such mascots of the Games as owls Sukki, Tsukki, Nokki and Lekki. The word snowlets is formed from two roots: snow - "snow", and let "s - "let's." And since the Games are held every four years, the mascot consisted of four owls, whose names were chosen from almost fifty thousand ideas and proposals received from sports fans.

Emblem

The emblem was no less interesting. The Olympics in Nagano were represented by a flower, on the petals of which athletes were depicted - representatives of one or another winter sport. The emblem was similar to the snowflake, which symbolizes the Winter Olympics. She was also associated with a mountain flower. Thus, the Japanese, great lovers of ecology, have emphasized their respect for nature and environmental issues in Nagano Prefecture. The dynamic look of this colorful and bright emblem, according to experts, was a testament to the atmosphere of enthusiasm in which the Games were held, while at the same time symbolizing their splendor.

Nagano Olympics - ice hockey

The final of this type of competition was called the "dream tournament" by the press. For the first time in the history of the Winter Games, the Nagano Olympics, where hockey was also represented by members of the NHL - the strongest players in the world, was advertised by this richest league. Just before the start of the Games, the NHL leadership held three exhibition matches in Japan. This was done with the aim of instilling in the Japanese an interest in hockey. After that, according to rumors, the impressionable Asians - the hosts of the Olympics - literally "got sick" with the game with the puck and stick. And although they understood the rules with great difficulty, they maintained the atmosphere in the stadium very effectively.

The leadership of the NHL understood that the participation of stars of this magnitude would once again advertise this overseas championship. In addition, it seemed to the Americans and Canadians that they would be able to repeat the 1996 World Cup final, and it was they who would meet in the final match. However, thanks to the Czechs, the North American "masters" of ice left Nagano without even winning the "bronze". Russia and the Czech Republic reached the final. However, our compatriots failed in the final duel to "print" the gates of Hasek. Moreover, in the third period, the Russians missed a rather offensive puck, and as a result won

The success of Russian athletes

It is known that cross-country skiing is the main winter Olympics. And so they are always given great attention. In 1998, already a two-time Olympic champion in relay races, she won a silver medal in the individual fifteen-kilometer classic race. Gold was received by her compatriot Olga Danilova. The team of Russian girls - N. Gavrilyuk, O. Danilova, E. Vyalbe and L. Lazutina - once again delighted their fans by winning the 4 x 5 km relay.

The Bure brothers, Alexei Zhamnov, Alexei Gonchar, Andrei Kovalenko, and Sergei Fedorov came to defend the honor of Russian sports. With these guys, and Fujiyama was on the shoulder, and knee-deep, and the strength of the Olympics in Nagano. Figure skating was represented by a fairly powerful team, but the audience was most impressed by the surprisingly complex and clean program of the gold winner.

Not without scandals at the Olympic Games in 1998. Annoyed by their failure, the players of the American hockey team staged a brawl, breaking the furniture in their rooms in the sports village, thereby causing the organizers of the competition not only financial, but also

Surprisingly, the most "Russian" among all the teams in Nagano was the national team of Kazakhstan. The Russian team included one Ukrainian and one Lithuanian each, while this Central Asian country sent only ethnic Russians to the Games.

The main surprise of the competition in Nagano was an earthquake with a power of five points, which occurred on the twentieth of February. Luckily, no participants or spectators were hurt. In ice dancing, two-time Olympic champions were with Evgeny Platov from Russia. And only after the last victorious performance it turned out that the partner danced with a broken wrist.

The ceremony of farewell to the Games, as well as the opening, was accompanied by fireworks. It was a salute of rare beauty - five thousand high-altitude charges took off into the evening sky in just eight minutes. The participants say that the Winter Olympics in Nagano, one of the most emotional in the history of the World Games, flew by just as fleetingly. Competitions of this magnitude were held in Japan, and simply could not help but amaze with scientific and technical innovations worthy of the coming twenty-first century. The country rising sun more than once amazed the world with its technologies, the Nagano Olympics in 1998 was no exception.

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 prediction was completely justified. After the competitions in all 68 numbers of the program ended. The German delegation had 12 medals of the highest standard, Norway - 10, Russia - 9.

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

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

The real discovery of the Games was Yulia Chepalova. Victory in the 30 km race of this young Muscovite, who was born in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and studied at the Khabarovsk State Institute physical education, was for many, of course, unexpected. But only for the coaches: they saw Yulia as 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 on their stages of the relay and deservedly received gold medals. From now on, both Elena and Nina are triple Olympic champions, since Gavrylyuk in 1988 and 1994, and Vyalba in 1992 and 1994, already shared with their friends the joy of victory in relay races.

Figure skaters contributed three gold medals to the common treasury. This is certainly an outstanding achievement. Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev became champions in pair skating, Pasha Grischuk and Evgeny Platov in ice dancing, in men's singles- Ilya Kulik. 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

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

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

Information provided by the Russian Olympic Committee.

Nagano (Japan)

The Winter Games have returned to Japan 26 years after the Sapporo Olympics. In the fight for the right to host the sports forum, Nagano was ahead of American Salt Lake City, Swedish Östersund, Spanish Jaca and Italian Aosta. Competitions on the island of Honshu were 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 occurred in Nagano Prefecture - the Olympians were very scared, although no one was injured. At the same time, the Games themselves left a good 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.

		W	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 athletes participating - 2176 (787 women, 1389 men)
Medal sets - 68
Team Winner - Germany

The three main characters of the Games according to "SE"

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

Bure outdid Gretzky

Number of participants Winter Games in Nagano for the first time exceeded the mark of 2000 athletes. This was due to the new expansion of the competition program. Women's ice 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 last restrictions on the appearance of pros at the Games have been lifted, and the regular season of the NHL has been taken on hiatus. The hockey tournament in Nagano beat 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 national hockey team in Nagano was made up entirely of NHL players, with the exception of the third goalkeeper Oleg Shevtsov. Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov and Alexei Yashin were considered the main stars of the team. Vyacheslav Fetisov, Igor Larionov, Alexander Mogilny, Nikolai Khabibulin, Sergey Zubov and some other famous hockey players refused the invitation to the national team. In many ways, the refusal was caused by the failed 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 ice hockey federation, Valentin Sych, who fell from a killer's bullet. Perhaps it was the stars-refuseniks that the Russian team lacked in order to defeat the Czechs in the final of the 1998 Olympics.

Decisive match hockey tournament between the national teams of the Czech Republic and Russia ended with a football score of 1:0 in favor of our rivals. The Czechs, which included Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr, became Olympic champions. And the Russian fans could console themselves only with the phenomenal result of Pavel Bure - in the semifinals, the captain of the Russian team sent five goals into the Finns' gates.

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 in the entire tournament. It got to the point that Canada's coach Mark Crawford did not trust the 37-year-old veteran to perform a post-match shootout in the semi-finals against the Czechs. In that series, Hasek won all five duels against the Maple Leaves, depriving the founders of hockey of the chance for gold. Frustrated Canadian stars could not get together in the match for third place with the Finns and were left in Nagano without medals at all.

TRIUMPH OF SKIERS

In addition to hockey, in February 1998 the whole country was watching Olympic tournament on figure skating. In it, Russia won three out of four gold medals - Ilya Kulik, a couple Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev, as well as a dance duet Oksana Grischuk and Evgeny Platov tried their best. The latter took the second in Nagano Olympic title in a row, despite the fact that Oksana performed with a broken wrist. In addition, two months before the start of the Games, Grischuk unexpectedly announced that now she should be called by the name Pasha (according to one of the versions, so that she would not be confused with the Ukrainian single skater Oksana Baiul). After Nagano-1998, the duo broke up. Grischuk began performing with Alexander Zhulin and returned to her former 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 the 21-year-old Chepalova, this was the first Olympics - it was in Nagano that her star rose. In men, the Norwegian Bjorn Daly became the hero of the ski track, who, following the results of the 1998 Games, became the most titled athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics - he has 8 gold and 4 silver medals in his collection. Another record was set in the figure skaters tournament - 15-year-old American Tara Lipinski became the youngest individual champion in the history of the White Games.

One of the highlights of the 1998 Olympics was the incident with the Austrian skier Hermann Maier. After a horrific downhill crash, the Austrian not only returned to the start, but also won gold medals in the super-G and giant slalom. Thanks to this feat, the nickname Herminator stuck to Mayer - by analogy with the invulnerable movie Terminator. In the luge competition, the public applauded the German Georg Hakl, who won the third Olympics in a row. The Hakl medal proved to be an important contribution to the German national team - the Germans won the overall standings, ahead of the Norwegians by two gold. Our team dropped to third place for the first time. Even the incredible victory of biathlete Galina Kukleva, who in the 7.5 km race was ahead of the German Uschi Disl by only 7 tenths of a second, did not help.

CHAMPION'S SPIRIT

The scandal marked the Olympic debut of snowboarding. First ever Olympic champion in the giant slalom Canadian Ross Rebagliatti was immediately caught on marijuana. The athlete explained the presence of the drug in his doping test by visiting a party where Ross's friends allegedly smoked sensimilla, and Rebagliatti accidentally inhaled intoxicating smoke. The junkie champion was disqualified, but, to everyone's surprise, was 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 included in 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 pedal the topic of doping and, according to some reports, even thought about legalizing stimulants. But the competitions in Nagano were the last winter Olympics of the Spanish marquis. Very different times will soon 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 fall under the hood of anti-doping services. Another skier - the winner of the 30 km race Finn Mika Myllula - two years after Nagano will be at the center of a high-profile doping scandal, become addicted to alcohol and in 2011 will be found dead in his apartment. The police will come to the conclusion that Myllula committed suicide.

The German speed skater Claudia Pechstein, who won the 5000m 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 on the courts and eventually prove that the abnormal indicators of her analysis are caused by a hereditary disease. By the way, Pechstein achieved success in Nagano not only due 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 clapboard skates with a detachable heel. 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 beginning of the Olympics, the Dutch and Germans were the best with valves. But Russian athletes were not ready for these changes.

The venue for 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 held in the United States. After all, the competition was held 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 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, in many states there are simply no 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.

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

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

In the unofficial medal count, Germany took first place, which came as a surprise to sports experts. Athletes from this country have won 29 medals of various denominations. Following with a slight gap of 4 medals was Norway. Russia became third, overtaking Canada and the United States, which can be considered 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.

Tip 2: Where did the 1998 Winter Olympics take place?

The Winter Olympic Games were first held in 1924, when they included 4 sports and played 14 sets of awards. 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 played increased to 68. This meeting of the Olympians was held in one of the cities of the central island of Japan.

The last of the last century could take place in one of the 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. The vote required five rounds, at the end of which, by a narrow margin of only four votes out of 88, the Japanese city was ahead. It was the third and so far the last competition, which took place in the Land of the Rising Sun. Before that, 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 the 8 nearest municipalities and now has almost 400 thousand inhabitants. Already 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 industry and engineering enterprises. To this day, Nagano remains the southernmost host city of the Winter Olympics. The M-Wawe indoor skating rink, the Wakasato multi-purpose sports arena and the Aqua Wing indoor ice arena were built in the city for the Games, which was turned into a water sports center at the end of 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 the Emperor of Japan Akihito, and the awards were played 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 skaters who lost the championship in only one discipline.