History
Fast Facts
Host City: Lillehammer, NorwayOpening date: Feb. 12, 1994
Closing date: Feb. 27, 1994
Nations: 64
Athletes: 1,905 (1,474 Men, 531 Women)
61 events in 10 sports
To escape the common perception of the Winter Games as a kind of prelude to the "real" Olympics, they received their own Olympiad in 1994, halfway between the Summer Games of 1992 and 1996.
The games had an ugly prelude of their own: an attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, two days before the U. S. National championships. Clubbed on the right knee during a practice session, Kerrigan was unable to compete in the nationals, clearing the way for a victory by Tonya Harding. It was later revealed that the attack resulted from a conspiracy led by Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and that Harding herself knew about the conspiracy after the fact.
The International Olympic Committee attempted to prevent Harding from participating in the Olympics, but was forced to back off by the threat of a lawsuit. Kerrigan won the silver medal while Harding finished eighth.
Bonnie Blair, who announced that she would retire from competition after the Olympics, won two more gold medals to run her total to a record-tying five.
The most emotion-packed victory, though, was Dan Jansen's win in the 1,000-meter event in world record time. Although one of the world's best, Jansen had failed to win a medal in three previous Olympics and even rival skaters shed tears of joy after he finally won. In short-track skating, Cathy Turner repeated as the 500-meter champion but was disqualified from the 1,000 meters for obstruction.
The U. S. Alpine ski team did much better than expected, winning five medals, including golds for Diann Roffe-Steinrotter in the super giant slalom and Tommy Moe in the downhill. Moe also won a silver in the Super-G, becoming the first American skier to win more than one medal in an Olympics since 1964.
Canada's Myriam Bedard not only became the first North American to win a gold medal in biathlon, she took both individual races.
Host Norway led all countries with a total of 26 medals. As usual, Norwegians did very well in cross-country skiing, which attracted crowds of up to 120,000. But the individual hero was Johan Olav "The Boss" Koss, who won three speed skating events, all in world record time. He donated his $30,000 bonus for winning the 1,500 meters to Olympic Aid, a new charity organized by Norway.
