Back More
Salem Press

The 1990s in America

Olympic Games of 1994

by David Barratt

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 neighboring Sweden; and Sofia, Bulgaria, for the 1994 Olympics. The city put in a great number of resources, even moving the jumping hills to accommodate the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

Sixty-seven nations participated—with 1,737 athletes, 1,215 men and 522 women—statistics comparable with the previous Winter Games. This time, the former Soviet bloc countries competed separately, rather than under the Unified Team banner of the previous 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 Lysg�rdsbakkene Stadium. The theme for the opening spectacular was based on Norwegian folklore.

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 athletes performed outstandingly, gaining more medals 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 combined 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, setting a world record, though downhill champion Kjetil Aamodt, widely expected to win, could only attain 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. She gained the gold in the toughest of the races, the 30-kilometer, in which Russian Lyubov Yegorova, who had already won three golds and a silver, was favored. Yegorova finished fifth. The famous Alberto Tomba failed in his bid to win a third successive gold for Italy in the men’s slalom, having to settle for the silver.

The figure skating usually produces a number of outstanding performances. By 1994, the rules had been relaxed, in keeping with certain other sports, to allow professionals to compete, though on an amateur basis. This meant that the British dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, previous gold medalists at Sarajevo (1984), could compete again, as could Germany’s Katarina Witt. However, the judges seemed at odds with the new rules and awarded Torvill and Dean a very controversial bronze, behind two Russian dance pairs. At a later press conference, the judges admitted that they had made mistakes in the scoring. Witt also placed very poorly.

Equally controversial was the gold awarded to the young Ukrainian Oksana Baiul. Her gold was a fairy-tale ending for her, as her coach had previously left her, she had no funding, and she had been helped only by her fellow Ukrainian, former gold medalist Viktor Petrenko, and his coach. However, many felt that the gold should have gone to American Nancy Kerrigan, the more mature of the skaters. Moreover, a few months earlier, Kerrigan had been clubbed in the knee by an assailant linked to rival Tonya Harding; thus, there was a large sympathy vote for Kerrigan. The incident certainly produced the largest-ever American viewing audience for the women’s figure skating events.

U.S. and Canadian Successes

Besides Kerrigan’s silver, Canadian Elvis Stojko won a silver medal in men’s figure skating, and many felt that he, too, should have received the gold with his athletic brilliance. Canada gained gold in the women’s 7.5-kilometer biathlon, breaking the European stranglehold over this event. However, in ice hockey, Canada was defeated by Sweden in the final on a penalty shoot-out.

For the United States, American speed skater Dan Jensen finally won a gold medal in the men’s 1000-meter, setting a world record, having failed to gain a medal in four Olympic attempts at the 500-meter. Yet he had won at the world championships a few weeks earlier at the shorter race, breaking his own world record. In women’s speed skating, Bonnie Blair won the 1000-meter, making it a U.S. double. Canada took the silver.

U.S. success began on the first day of the Games, when Tommy Moe from Alaska beat the Norwegian favorite in the downhill. Moe later gained silver in the men’s super giant slalom. In the women’s version, Diann Roffe won for the United States, making another double.

Impact

International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch declared the 1994 Games the “best Winter Games ever” in his closing speech, but he also reminded his audience of the 1984 Sarajevo Games and the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina was in the midst of a war in 1994. The peaceful and reconciling work of the Games was still needed.

Further Reading

1 

Klausen, Arne Martin, ed. Olympic Games as Performance and Public Event: The Case of the XVII Winter Olympic Games in Norway. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999. A sociological series of essays on the Games.

2 

U.S. Olympic Committee. The Olympic Century: XXV Olympiad, Barcelona 1992, and Lillehammer 1994. Tonawanda, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 1996. Includes the official U.S. report of the 1994 Winter Games.

3 

Wallechinsky, David. The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, 1994. New York: Little, Brown, 1993. A preview of the 1994 Winter Games.

4 

Wukovits, John. The Encyclopedia of the Winter Olympics. New York: Franklin Watts, 2002. A compendium of information on all the Winter Olympics.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Barratt, David. "Olympic Games Of 1994." The 1990s in America, edited by Milton Berman, Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1990_1412.
APA 7th
Barratt, D. (2009). Olympic Games of 1994. In M. Berman (Ed.), The 1990s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Barratt, David. "Olympic Games Of 1994." Edited by Milton Berman. The 1990s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.