1998 Winter Olympics
The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVIII Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Nagano 1998, were a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, with some events taking place in the nearby mountain communities of Hakuba, Karuizawa, Nozawa Onsen, and Yamanouchi. The city of Nagano had previously been a candidate to host the 1940 Winter Olympics, as well as the 1972 Winter Olympics, but had been eliminated at the national level by Sapporo on both occasions.
The games hosted 2,176 athletes from 72 nations competing in 7 sports and 68 events. The number of athletes and participating nations were a record at the time. The Games saw the introduction of women's ice hockey, curling and snowboarding. National Hockey League players were allowed to participate in the men's ice hockey for the first time. Azerbaijan, Kenya, Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela made their debut at the Winter Olympics.
The athlete who won the most medals at these games was the Russian cross-country skier Larisa Lazutina who won five medals, including three gold. The Norwegian cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie won four medals, including three gold, which took his total Olympic medal total to 12, including eight gold, which is a record for Winter Olympics. Czech men's ice hockey team won the gold medal. In Ski Jumping, Kazuyoshi Funaki won two gold medals and one silver for host Japan. The American Figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest champion in Olympic history at the age of 15 years and 255 days. Germany dominated the medal table with 29 medals, including 12 gold. Germany was followed by Norway and Russia, who won 25 and 18 medals respectively. Canada, which finished fourth in the medal table with 15 medals, including six gold, had its most successful Winter Olympics up until that point.
The host was selected on 15 June 1991, over Salt Lake City, Östersund, Jaca and Aosta. They were the third Olympic Games and second Winter Olympics to be held in Japan, after the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo. The games were succeeded by the 1998 Winter Paralympics from 5 to 14 March. These were the final Winter Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch.
The hosting of the games improved transportation networks with the construction of the high-speed Shinkansen, the Nagano Shinkansen, between Tokyo and Nagano Station, via Ōmiya and Takasaki. In addition, new highways were built, including the Nagano Expressway and the Jōshin-etsu Expressway and upgrades were made to existing roads.
Host city selection
In 1932, Japan won the rights to host the 1940 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. At that time, organizers of the Summer Olympics had priority in choosing the venue for the Winter Olympics the same year. Several Japanese cities, including Nagano, prepared a bid. Sapporo was chosen; however, the games never took place because of World War II. In 1961, Nagano declared its intention to host the 1968 Winter Olympics but lost to Sapporo, the winning Japanese bid, who lost to Grenoble, France, and Sapporo eventually won the right to host the 1972 Winter Olympics.Japanese private sector organizations, in 1983, began publicly discussing a possible bid. Two years later, in 1985, the Nagano Prefectural Assembly, decided to begin the process to bid, for its third time, for a Winter Olympics. The bid committee was established in July 1986, they submitted their bid to the Japanese Olympic Committee in November of the same year. Other Japanese cities that were bidding were Asahikawa, Yamagata, and Morioka. 1 June 1988, the JOC selected Nagano in the first round of national voting, receiving 34 of 45 votes. In 1989, the bid committee was reorganized, with the Japanese Prime Minister as head of the committee. The number of committee members was 511.
On 12 February 1990, the bid delegation presented its candidature at the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne before Juan Antonio Samaranch. Other candidate cities for the 1998 Olympics were Aosta, Italy; Jaca, Spain; Östersund, Sweden; Salt Lake City, United States, and Sochi, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. The host city selection was held in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on 15 June 1991, at the 97th IOC session. After the first round of voting, Nagano led, with Aosta and Salt Lake City tied for last. Aosta was eliminated in a run-off against Salt Lake City. After the second round of voting, Nagano led with Salt Lake City in second, and Jaca was eliminated. Following round 3, Nagano continued to lead, with Salt Lake City in second, and Östersund was eliminated. Finally, Nagano prevailed over Salt Lake City by just 4 votes in the fifth round of voting, becoming the third Japanese city to host the games after Tokyo in 1964 Summer Olympics and Sapporo in 1972. Nagano, at 36°N, is the southernmost city in the Northern Hemisphere to host the Winter Olympics. In June 1995, Salt Lake was chosen as the host of the following 2002 Winter Olympics.
Following a 2002 Winter Olympic bid scandal that occurred in the summer of 2000, Atlanta, host of the 1996 Summer Olympics, Nagano, and Sydney, host of the 2000 Summer Olympics, were suspected of similar improprieties in bidding practices. Although nothing illegal was ever done, gifts to IOC members were considered morally dubious. The Nagano Olympic bid committee spent approximately $14 million to entertain the 62 International Olympic Committee members and many of their companions. The precise figures are unknown since Nagano, after the IOC asked that the entertainment expenditures not be made public, destroyed the financial records, according to bid member Junichi Yamaguchi.
Proposed dates
Organization
Five months after the city was selected, the Nagano Olympic Organizing Committee was created. Eishiro Saito, Chairman of Japan Business Federation was selected as president of the committee. There were four Vice Presidents: Goro Yoshimura, the Governor of Nagano Prefecture; Hironoshin Furuhashi, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee; Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the president of the Ski Association of Japan; and Tasuku Tsukada, the Mayor of Nagano City. In addition, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Tadashi Tsuda, served as director-general. Tsuda was replaced by Makoto Kobayashi in 1993.The organizing committee recognized three goals for the games, which they referred to as "Games from the Heart": promote youth participation, coexistence with nature, create a festival with peace and friendship at its centre. To realize the first goal, a camp bringing together 217 young people from 51 countries was created, along with the program of "One school, one country" in Nagano Prefecture. This program organized cultural exchanges with other countries. In addition, more than 100,000 tickets were reserved for children. For the second point, the organizers attempted to minimize the impact on their nature and the local ecosystem. Regarding the third point, an international truce organized by the United Nations in 1997 was adopted during the games.
In June 1998, four months after the Games, the NAOC presented a donation of US$1 million to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. This value come of the revenue of tickets sales and another actions from the committee. In October of the same year, NAOC also donated the 3-D high vision theater and some structures that were used in Nagano Olympic Villages to the Olympic Museum.
In February 1999, one year after the Games, the IOC awarded the Nagano the Olympic Cup, and presented the city a replica of the sculpture of stylized athletes raising the Olympic Flag by the Swiss artist Nag Arnoldi.
Economic aspects
The costs of construction and of the land of the Olympic venues totaled ¥106.6 billion, approximately 914 million US dollars. Of this, the Japanese national government spent ¥51.1 billion, the Nagano prefectural government spent ¥29.6 billion, and the cities and towns of Nagano, ¥23.4 billion; Hakuba, ¥1 billion; and Nozawa Onsen, ¥1.1 billion; shared the remaining ¥25.5 billion. The most expensive venue was impressive M-Wave, the indoor rink which hosted the long-track speed skating events. It cost near ¥34.8 billion. The two ice hockey venues, Big Hat and Aqua Wing Arena cost ¥19.1 and ¥9.1 billion respectively. The White Ring, which hosted figure skating and short-track speed skating cost ¥14.2 billion, the Spiral, which hosted bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton, cost ¥10.1 billion. Another ¥8.6 billion was spent on the Hakuba Ski Jumping Stadium, ¥7 billion for Snow Harp – the cross-country skiing venue, and ¥3 billion for the biathlon venue at Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort.The organizing committee financed all costs, totaling ¥113.9 billion. It spent ¥99.4 billion for operational expenses, ¥21.6 billion for public relations, ¥20.7 billion for installations, ¥18.4 billion for telecommunications, ¥15.9 billion for running the competitions, and ¥14.4 billion for administration. Television rights were worth ¥35.4 billion, and marketing earned ¥31.3 billion. Ticket sales were worth ¥10.5 billion. The total cost of the Nagano Games is estimated to have been US$15.25 billion, of which the largest factor in the cost of the games was the extension of the shinkansen to Nagano. This compares, for example, with US$2.5 billion for the 2002 Winter Olympics, US$4.35 billion for the 2006 Winter Olympics, US$7.56 billion for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and US$51 billion for the 2014 Winter Olympics
Transportation
is situated at the Japanese Alps area and receives large snowfalls every year. These combined to make transportation an important challenge for the organizing committee. In addition, the Olympic Village was a distance of 7 kilometers from the center of the city, and sporting events were spread over five surrounding cities. The complicating matters were that many of the venues had one single road in-out, which limited possibilities and led to traffic jams.To improve access to Nagano, the government decided to link the prefecture with the high-speed shinkansen train network. Called Nagano Shinkansen, it was inaugurated five months before the start of the Games. This reduced by half the travel time between Tokyo and Nagano, to 79 minutes for 221 kilometers. The length of the track between Takasaki Station and Nagano Station is 125.7 km, which includes 63.4 km of tunnels. The high speed train network carried 655,000 passengers during the Games.
Two highways, the Nagano Expressway and the Jōshin-etsu Expressway, were also built in the Nagano region. In May 1993, the 75.8-kilometer section of the Nagano Expressway was completed, and in October 1997, the 111.4 kilometer section of the Jōshin-etsu Expressway was completed. In addition, another 114.9 kilometers of roads within Nagano Prefecture were improved.
Transportation systems for the Games ran for 33 days, from the opening of the Athletes Village until 3 days after the Paralympics closing ceremony, when the Village was decommissioned from its functions. Approximately 64% of the athletes arrived between 1 and 6 February, and 74% left Nagano between 22 and 25 February. Logistical operations were directed from the operational centre situated at the Organizing Committee headquarters. Two regional logistical minor hubs were created in Hakuba and Yamanouchi, as well as a traffic center for buses and cars in Karuizawa. Originally it was expected that both athletes and media delegations would arrive entirely via Narita International Airport, which did not happen given the high demand for plane tickets. So some delegations had to arrive via Kansai International Airport and Chubu Centrair International Airport in Nagoya The members of the IOC and the delegations who arrived in Narita traveled to Nagano via Shinkansen.
To improve transportation for spectators, the number and hours of local trains were extended. During the heaviest traffic days, more cars and buses were put in service and up to 68 parking areas, for 8,000 vehicles were at available for various Olympic delegations, and another 17 parking areas for 23,000 cars for spectators. Approximately 1,200 vehicles had navigation systems which transmitted their locations in a GPS system.
As one of the principal aims of the Games was to respect nature, many vehicles were considered ecological or semi-ecological. In addition, there were more than 100 electric vehicles, hybrid mini-buses and other environmentally-friendly vehicles.