Programs
Competitions
Venues
Access
A la carte
Photo Album
From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
 |
Biggest winter Olympics to open in Nagano
Decked out in kimono finery, the former world champion, then 21, told the IOC members in her well-practiced English that she hoped she would be able to skate for them all in 1998 in Nagano.
Ito's appeal and the geographical advantage of being the lone Asian candidate -- along with a promise to pay the travel and lodgings expenses of the athletes for the Games -- did the trick as the central Japan city won a narrow victory over four other cities for the right to stage the Games.
As for the promise to pay all of the athletes' expenses, Nagano Olympic organizers later backed off that promise, under a growing mountain of other expenses, and agreed to pay 1,000 dollars toward the expenses of each of the athletes taking part in the Games.
On Saturday, Ito, who has long since hung up her competitive blades, will give the performance of her life for the IOC when she ignites the Olympic flame to kick off the largest winter sports spectacle ever staged.
The 16-day extravaganza, running through Feb. 22, will feature more than 2,450 athletes from a record 72 countries vying for medals in an unprecedented 68 sports events.
Three events -- curling, snowboarding and women's ice hockey -- will be on the program of the winter Olympics for the first time.
The men's ice hockey tournament will also feature, for the first time, stars of the North American National Hockey League (NHL), which is taking a two-week break to allow them to play in the Olympics.
Olympic action will also be watched in an unprecedented 160 countries, many of them warm-weather nations with little traditional connection with the winter Games, by a cumulative television audience expected to exceed the 10.7 billion who watched the Lillehammer Games in 1994.
And Olympic officials come to this central Japan city of 360,000 with equally high expectations -- especially in light of Japan's previous Olympic successes with the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and the Sapporo Winter Games in 1972.
''I'm convinced these are going to be excellent games. I have full faith in our Japanese friends,'' IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said as he got off the Shinkansen bullet train in Nagano recently.
Some members of the Nagano Olympic organizing committee (NAOC) have already suggested that Nagano is ready to outdo Lillehammer, which hosted in 1994 what were widely regarded as the best winter Olympics ever.
But the road to organizing the biggest winter Olympics -- and maybe the best ever -- has been filled with plenty of obstacles.
Citizens groups have criticized the cost of the Games even though one leading Japanese economist recently said the investment of some 10.5 billion dollars in infrastructure improvements in Nagano was a boost for an otherwise stagnant national economy.
The new Shinkansen line, which cut travel time to Tokyo in half to 90 minutes, an improved Matsumoto airport and newly constructed venues and Olympic-related facilities are expected to get plenty of use long after the athletes have returned home.
NAOC's 103 billion yen (about 825 million dollars) operating budget is also covered by marketing and television rights deals, and IOC officials say a small profit can be expected when the books are finally closed.
One of the ironies of Nagano's organization of the Games has been NAOC's concern with environmental issues after green groups, protesting the Nagano bid in Birmingham in 1991, were dismissed as noisy troublemakers.
The careful regard for the environment, however, led to the construction of unique bobsled and luge runs with two uphill sections that have thus far confounded the competitors, and the relocation of the biathlon venue to Nozawa Onsen to protect a nesting area for goshawks near Hakuba.
Organizers said the start of the men's downhill on the Happo-one piste in Hakuba could not be raised above 1,680 meters above sea level since it would encroach upon a protected national park area.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) was puzzled by NAOC's reluctance to go above 1,680 meters when an estimated 170,000 recreational skiers schussed over the higher ground each winter -- taken to the top of the run at 1,800 meters by a ski lift already installed on the site.
The issue, which had been seen as the final issue to be resolved before the opening of the Games, was resolved in December after considerable pressure had been applied by FIS, the Japanese Olympic Committee and even some of NAOC's own members. The starting gate was raised to a compromise height of 1,765 meters.
Even with all of the work put in by the organizers and some 35,000 volunteers, questions linger on the eve of the Games.
Concerns about traffic, weather and security continue to weigh heavily on the minds of the organizers.
Still, this cannot dampen the Olympic atmosphere that has overtaken this old temple town -- a feeling that is certain to grow each time a figure skater scores a perfect 6.0, a skier glides across the finish line or a puck finds the back of the net.
The IOC has been waiting seven years for Midori Ito to perform and now the time has come.
(Kyodo News)
No part of the article, photographs, or illustrations presented here may be printed or used without permission.
Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun