N.Y.: Firefly Books, 1996. Includes the official
U.S. report of the Barcelona Olympics.
Wallechinsky, David.The Complete Book of the Olympics,
1992. New York: Little, Brown, 1992. A complete
preview of that year’s Olympic Games, with full
descriptions of leading athletes and events.
David Barratt
See also Barkley, Charles; Baseball; Basketball;
Boxing; Browning, Kurt; Dream Team; Hockey;
Johnson, Magic; Jordan, Michael; Kerrigan, Nancy;
Malone, Karl; Olympic Games of 1994; Olympic
Games of 1996; Olympic Games of 1998; Olympic
Park bombing; Salt Lake City Olympics bid scandal;
Soccer; Sports; Stojko, Elvis; Tennis; Yamaguchi,
Kristi.
Olympic Games of 1994
The Event The staging of the XVII Winter
Olympiad, an international athletic competition
held every four years
Date February 12-27, 1994
Place Lillehammer, Norway
These Games marked the first time that the Winter and
Summer Olympics were not held in the same year. Norway
performed exceptionally well, as did Russia and Germany.
Despite that Lillehammer was a town of only twenty-
five thousand inhabitants, it beat rival bids
from Anchorage, Alaska; Östersund in neigh-
boring Sweden; and Sofia, Bulgaria, for the
1994 Olympics. The city put in a great num-
ber of resources, even moving the jumping
hills to accommodate the Columbia Broad-
casting System (CBS).
Sixty-seven nations participated—with
1,737 athletes, 1,215 men and 522 women—
statistics comparable with the previous Win-
ter Games. This time, the former Soviet bloc
countries competed separately, rather than
under the Unified Team banner of the previ-
ous Games. These included Russia, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Sixty-
one events were slated across six sports, one
less sport (curling) than the previous games,
at nine separate locations.
King Harald V of Norway presided over
the opening ceremony. The Olympic Oath
was taken by cross-country skier Vegard Ulvang and
the Official Oath by figure skater Kari Karing. The
Olympic torch was lit by Crown Prince Haakon in
the Lysgårdsbakkene Stadium. The theme for the
opening spectacular was based on Norwegian folk-
lore.
The day of the opening was marred by the theft of
Norway’s iconic painting The Scream, by Edvard
Munch, from the National Museum in Oslo. The
thieves reckoned on everyone being distracted and
off guard because of the opening ceremony. The
painting was recovered several years later.Outstanding Achievements The host country is
seen to have an advantage, and its athletes often gain
unexpected success. In these Games, Norway’s ath-
letes performed outstandingly, gaining more med-
als than any other country overall and gaining ten
gold medals in all, only one fewer than Russia. Their
total medal count of twenty-six equaled the com-
bined total of the U.S. and Canadian teams, who
gained thirteen medals each. On the opening day,
for example, Norwegian Johann Koss earned a gold
medal in the men’s 5,000-meter speed skating, set-
ting a world record, though downhill champion
Kjetil Aamodt, widely expected to win, could only at-
tain silver. Koss went on to pick up two other golds in
speed skating, again setting new world records.
In cross-country skiing, Italian Manuela Di Centa
gained a medal in every one of the women’s events.The Nineties in America Olympic Games of 1994 641
Leading Medal Winners of the
1994 Winter OlympicsCountry Gold Silver Bronze Medals Won
Russia 11 8 4 23
Norway 10 11 5 26
Germany 9 7 8 24
Italy 7 5 8 20
United States 6 5 2 13
South Korea 4 1 1 6
Canada 3 6 4 13
Switzerland 3 4 2 9
Austria 2 3 4 9
Sweden 2 1 0 3