Olympiad in Nagano. Winter Olympics in Nagano

Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998 - the eighteenth in a row - has become a truly iconic world sport. It was on the eve of the Games in Japan that the UN General Assembly, in its resolution, for the first time in history, de facto urged states to suspend not only international but even internal conflicts. Finally, the unwritten ban on holding wars at the time of the Olympics is "earned" by the well-known from the annals of Ancient Greece.

Nagano - medal classification

The Olympiad in Nagano hosted 2338 athletes, of whom 810 were women. It has become the most mass by number of participants and countries. In total, athletes from seventy-two states came to Japan, who competed in fourteen sports and sixty-eight disciplines. For the first time the Olympiad in Nagano played medals on curling: two sets - for men and women. The debut of the Games was for such snowboarding competitions as the giant slalom and the races held in a half-ruble. Of the seventy-two countries fighting for prizes, only twenty-four have achieved success, having won two hundred and five medals.

In the overall standings, the greatest number of awards that the Olympiad played in Nagano was won by athletes from Germany: they had twenty-nine awards, including twelve gold, nine silver, eight bronze medals. The second was the Norwegians with twenty-five, and the third - the Russians with eighteen medals.

For the first time in Nagano

The last winter games of the century became a kind of bridge to the future. It was the Olympiad in Nagano that opened the way for such sports as a snowboard, without which modern world competitions of this scale are already difficult to imagine, for a somewhat exotic curling and a women's light version of hockey. At these games, the first test of a clap having a detached heel and sending to the archive a book of previous records was passed. Both athletes and spectators were truly impressed by the new skates that were developed by the Dutch and introduced by Canadians. The idea of them, like all ingenious, was simple: the creators decided not to fasten the blade more firmly to the boot, but rather make it moveable. It was this small revolution that caused all previous records to fall and the tables had to be re-created.

For the first time on Japanese soil, a surprisingly reliable and strong Kevlar outfit was tested. For two weeks the audience watched the Olympiad in Nagano-1998. Hockey, in which for the first time in the history of the Games professionals from the NHL played, packed packed stadiums.

The Olympiad in Nagano was the first on which ice hockey competitions among women were organized. American women became the champions, in second place was the Canadian team, and the Finnish team won bronze. The games of 1998 became a step towards the future for the White Olympiads, whose popularity from year to year was more and more inferior to the summer analogue, and in many respects due to the absence of new kinds of competitions. However, the prevalence of debutants still was not enough to become a competition of this level. And the ability to hit the ice target, and hockey among women, and snowboarding on the board, were practiced to a greater extent in only a few countries in the world. And their presence at such a large-scale sports forum as the Olympics in Nagano, was explained, oddly enough, only by its entertainment.

Talismans of the Olympics in 1998

Wise Japanese as mascots have chosen four "snowlets": they were such mascots of the Games as the owls of Sukkah, Zukki, Nokki and Lekki. The word snowlets is formed from two roots: snow - "snow", and let's - "give." And since the Games are held every four years, the talisman also consisted of four owls, whose names were chosen from almost fifty thousand ideas and proposals received from sports fans.

Emblem

No less interesting was the emblem. The Olympiad in Nagano was represented by a flower, on the petals of which depicted athletes - representatives of a winter sport. The emblem was similar to the snowflake, which symbolizes the Winter Olympic Games. And she was associated with a mountain flower. Thus, the Japanese, great lovers of the environment, focused on their careful attitude to nature and environmental issues in Nagano Prefecture. The dynamic appearance of this colorful and bright emblem, according to experts, was evidence of the atmosphere of enthusiasm in which the Games were held, while also symbolizing their magnificence.

Olympiad in Nagano - hockey

The finale of this kind of competition was called the "dream tournament" by the press. For the first time in the history of the Winter Games, the Nagano Olympics, which was represented by hockey and NHL members - the strongest players in the world, was advertised by this richest league. Before the Games began, the NHL leadership held three exhibition matches in Japan. This was done with a view to instilling in the Japanese an interest in hockey. After that, according to rumors, impressionable Asiatic hosts - the hosts of the Olympics - literally "fell ill" with a game with a puck and stick. And although they understood the rules with great difficulty, but the atmosphere in the stadium was maintained very effectively.

The leadership of the NHL understood that the participation of stars of this magnitude would once again advertise this overseas championship. Besides, Americans and Canadians seemed to be able to repeat the 1996 World Cup finals, and they will meet in the final match. However, thanks to the Czechs, the North American "masters" of ice left Nagano without even winning the "bronze". And the finals were Russia and the Czech Republic. However, our compatriots failed to "print" the gate of Hasek in the final match. Moreover, in the third period, the Russians missed a pretty offensive puck, and as a result won silver medals.

The success of Russian athletes

It is known that ski races are the main ones in the Winter Olympics. And that's why they are always given a lot of attention. In 1998, Larisa Lazutina, being already a two-time Olympic champion in the relay race, won a silver award on the individual race for fifteen kilometers in the classical style. Gold was received by her compatriot Olga Danilova. The team of Russian girls - N. Gavrilyuk, O. Danilova, E. Vyalbe and L. Lazutina - once again pleased their fans by winning the 4 to 5-kilometer relay race.

Brothers Bure, Alexey Zhamnov, Alexey Yashin, Sergey Gonchar, Andrey Kovalenko, and Sergey Fedorov came to defend the honor of Russian sport . With these guys and Fujiyama was on the shoulder, and the Sea of Japan knee-deep, and the strength of the Olympics in Nagano. Figure skating was represented by a fairly powerful team, but the audience was most impressed by the amazingly complex and clean program of Ilya Kulik, who won gold.

Interesting Facts

It was not at the Olympics in 1998 and without scandals. Displeased with their failure, the players of the American hockey team arranged a rowdy, breaking furniture in their rooms in the sports village, thereby inflicting not only material but also moral damage to the organizers of the competition .

Surprisingly, the most "Russian" among all teams in Nagano was the national team of Kazakhstan. The Russian national team had one Ukrainian and one Lithuanian in its composition, while this Central Asian country sent only ethnic Russians to the Games.

The main surprise of the competitions in Nagano was an earthquake with a capacity of five points, which occurred on the twentieth of February. Fortunately, none of the participants and spectators were hurt. In dances on ice, Oksana Grischuk and Evgeny Platov from Russia became two-time Olympic champions. And only after the last victorious performance it was found out that the partner danced with a broken wrist.

Closure of the Olympics

The farewell ceremony with the Games, as well as the opening, was accompanied by fireworks. It was a rare in its beauty salute - five thousand high-altitude charges took off in the evening sky in just eight minutes. Participants say that the Winter Olympic Games in Nagano also flew by as fleetingly - one of the most spiritual in the history of the World Games. Competitions of this magnitude were held in Japan, and simply could not help but amaze with scientific and technological innovations worthy of the coming twenty-first century. The country of the rising sun more than once struck the world with its technologies, was not an exception and the Olympiad in Nagano in 1998.