XVII Olympic Winter Games

▪ 1995

by Melinda C. Shepherd

      For 16 days in February 1994, Lillehammer, Norway (population 23,800), and five neighbouring towns welcomed 1,737 athletes (1,216 men and 521 women), 40,000 accredited officials, 8,000 media personnel, and an estimated 100,000 spectators per day to celebrate the XVII Olympic Winter Games. The Games were held only two years after the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, and were the first scheduled in a different year from the Summer Games, due to take place in Atlanta, Ga., in 1996. Of the 67 national Olympic committees represented in Lillehammer, nine—Bermuda, Brazil, Cyprus, Fiji, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Luxembourg, Mongolia, and Portugal—sent only one athlete apiece. Bosnia and Herzegovina was represented by four bobsledders (a Serb, a Croat, and two Muslims), who raced in a borrowed Dutch sled and were unable to return to their war-torn home after the Games. Nine former Soviet republics made their first appearances as independent nations. Medals were awarded in 61 events, with 22 nations recording at least one medal winner.

      Norway topped the medal count (26), led by speed skater Johann Olav Koss (see BIOGRAPHIES (Koss, Johann Olav )), who won three gold medals in world-record times. Two other speed-skating favourites also triumphed. American Dan Jansen, who held the 500-m world record, finally won gold in the 1,000-m race after disastrous showings in the 1988 and 1992 Games. Jansen's teammate Bonnie Blair (see BIOGRAPHIES (Blair, Bonnie Kathleen )) once again dominated the short distances, winning her second consecutive gold medal in the 1,000-m race and her third in the 500 m. In cross-country skiing Lyubov Yegorova (see BIOGRAPHIES (Yegorova, Lyubov )) of Russia, who won three gold medals in Albertville, captured three more to tie the Olympic record of six. Yegorova's record streak of nine consecutive first- or second-place finishes ended abruptly, however, as she was shut out of the 30-km race won by her Italian archrival, Manuela Di Centa, the overall leader of the 1994 Games, with five medals (two gold and three silver). Figure skating saw the return of several former medalists who had regained amateur status for the event, but only the Russian pairs team of Yekaterina Gordeyeva and Sergey Grinkov repeated their earlier success of striking gold.

      Despite bitter cold temperatures weather conditions were generally good. Athletes and spectators alike were charmed by the warm Norwegian hospitality and by the high priority placed on environmental conservation at these "Green Games." Contractors were fined for cutting down too many trees; the ice hockey rink was set into the side of a mountain to conserve energy; bobsled and luge runs were chilled with environmentally safe coolant; bullets were automatically collected on the biathlon trails to prevent lead from leaching into the soil or poisoning local birds; and even the plates and utensils used for meals were made from recyclable or edible materials.

Melinda C. Shepherd is associate editor of Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbooks.

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