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The 2002 Olympic Winter
Games were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Other candidate cities were Quebec, Canada; Sion, Switzerland; and Östersund, Sweden.
Highlights
Prior to these Olympic Winter Games, a number of I.O.C members were forced to resign after it was uncovered that they had accepted
inappropriately valuable gifts in return for voting for Salt Lake City to hold the Games. New IOC president Jacques Rogge and new CEO of the Salt Lake Games Mitt Romney then staged the Games and contended with the public opinion backlash due to the scandal. The
September 11, 2001 Terrorist
Attack also required a higher level of security than ever before provided for an Olympiad.
Controversies continued into the Games. In the first week the pairs figure skating competition resulted in the French judge's scores being
thrown out and the Canadian team of Salé and Pelletier being awarded a second gold medal. Athletes in short-track speed skating and cross-country
skiing were disqualified for various reasons as well (including doping), leading Russia
and South Korea to file protests and threaten to withdraw from competition.
Olympic flame at Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremonies.
Competition highlights were biathlete Ole Einar
Bjørndalen, winning gold in all four men's events (10 k, 12.5 k, 20 k, 4 x 7.5 relay), Simon Ammann of Switzerland taking the double in ski jumping, and alpine skier Janica Kostelic winning three golds and a silver (the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete
from Croatia).
Skeleton returned as a medal sport in the 2002 Games for the
first time since 1948.
A feature of these Games has been the emergence of the so-called "extreme" sports, such as snowboarding, moguls and aerials,
which appeared in previous Olympic Winter Games but have captured greater public attention this year.
One of the most memorable stories of the event occurred at the short-track speed skating. Australian skater Steven Bradbury, an honest
competitor who had previously won a bronze as part of a relay team but well off the pace of the medal favourites, cruised off the
pace in his semifinal only to see his competitors crash into each other, allowing him through to the final. Bradbury was again
well off the pace, but lightning struck again and all four other competitors crashed out in the final, leaving a jubilant
Bradbury to take the most unlikely of gold medals, Australia's first in a Olympic Winter Games event.
Finally, the Canadian men's ice
hockey team defeated the American team 5-2 to claim the gold medal
and end a drought that lasted 50 years to the day. The Canadian women's team also defeated their American counterparts 3-2
after losing to them at the 1998 Winter Olympic
Games in Nagano and at all 8 exhibition games prior to the Salt Lake Games.
Medals awarded
- Alpine
skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsleigh
- Cross-country skiing
- Curling
- Figure
skating
- Freestyle
skiing
- Ice hockey
- Luge
- Nordic
combined
- Short track speed skating
- Skeleton
- Ski jumping
- Snowboarding
- Speed
skating
Medal count
See also
External links
Bibliography
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