The XVIII Olympic Winter Games were held in 1998 in Japan. Other candidate cities were Italy; Jaca, Spain; Östersund, Sweden; and Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Highlights

• XC skier Norway won three gold medals in Nordic skiing to become the first winter Olympian to earn eight career gold medals and twelve total medals.
• Snowboarding and curling debuted as official sports and women's ice hockey was introduced to the Olympic program.
• NHL players were able to compete in men's ice hockey due to a three week suspension of the competition.
• Tara Lipinski, 15, won the women's figure skating title to become the youngest champion in an individual event in the history of the Winter Olympics.
• Alpine skier Austria) survived a fall in the downhill and went on to gold in the super-g and giant slalom.
• Speed skaters Gianni Romme and Marianne Timmer won two gold medals each for the Netherlands; 5 out of 10 titles in speed skating went to the Netherlands.
• Snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won the gold medal, after initially being disqualified for marijuana usage.
• Azerbaijan, Kenya, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Uruguay and Venezuela made their first appearance at these Olympic Winter Games.

Medals awarded

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

Medal count

Top medal-collecting nations:
(for the full table, see 1998 Winter Olympics medal count)

See also

• 1998 Winter Paralympics
• Olympic Games
• Winter Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• WikiProject Sports Olympics
• IOC country codes

External links

• IOC Site on 1998 Winter Olympics (http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=2&OLGY=1998)