Winter Olympic Games

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Host City: Salt Lake City, 2002

The Winter Olympic Games returned to the United States for the first time in 22 years after calls for the Games to be cancelled following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The Games were held in Salt lake City, USA, in 2002, between Feb 8-24. 77 Nations with 2399 participants competed in 78 events. There are 41 men's events, 34 women's events, and 3 mixed events.

For these Games the program grew to 78 events with the return of skeleton and the introduction of women's bobsleigh.

Trivia

• The Canadian men's ice hockey team won the gold medal 50 years to the day after the last time they'd done so. The Canadian women's ice hockey team also won, with USA second in both cases.

• Norway's Ole Einar Bjørndalen wins all four men's biathlon events.

• German Georg Hackl won the silver in luge, becoming the first athlete ever to win five medals in one event.

• German speed-skater Claudia Pechstein won two gold medals, thus taking home a medal in four straight Winter Games.

• Australian Steven Bradbury won his country's first Winter Olympic Games gold medal in the 2002 Salt Lake City 1,000 m Short Track event, when all of the other competitors spectacularly fell over on the last bend. (see video)

• The first black athlete to win a winter gold medal was USA's Vonetta Flowers in the women's bobsleigh, at Salt Lake City in 2002. Also at these games, Canadian ice hockey player Jarome Iginia became the first black male gold medal winner.

• the Finn Samppa Lajunen ended with three out of three in the Nordic Combined.

• the Croat Janica Kostelic won three golds in the alpine skiing, a triple feat only achieved previously by the greats Toni Sailer and Jean-Claude Killy.

Related Pages

• Videos from Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics
• Lessons from the 2002 Winter Olympics
• more Winter Olympics Host Countries
• Winter Olympics main page.