The1992 Winter Olympics, officially known as theXVI Olympic Winter Games (French:XVIes Jeux Olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known asAlbertville '92 (Arpitan:Arbèrtvile '92), were a wintermulti-sport event held from 8 to 23 February 1992 in and aroundAlbertville, France. Albertville won the bid to host the Winter Olympics in 1986, beatingSofia,Falun,Lillehammer,Cortina d'Ampezzo,Anchorage, andBerchtesgaden. The 1992Winter Olympics were the last winter games held in the same year as theSummer Olympics.[2][3] The next Winter Olympics were held two years after this one instead of the usual four, which allowed the Olympic Games to take place on every even-numbered year instead of every four years. The Games were the fifth Olympic Games held in France and the country's third Winter Olympics, after the1924 Winter Games inChamonix and the1968 Winter Games inGrenoble. This games was the first of two consecutive Olympic games to be held in Western Europe, preceding the1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
18 events inFigure skating,short track speed skating,speed skating, and the opening and closing ceremonies took place in Albertville. The 39 other events were held in the nearby 9 villages and resorts aroundSavoie:Courchevel,La Plagne,Les Arcs,Les Menuires,Les Saisies,Méribel,Pralognan-la-Vanoise,Tignes, andVal d'Isère. Sixty-four National Olympic Committees and 1,801 athletes participated in sixsports and fifty-sevenevents. This included both theUnified Team, representing the non-Baltic formerSoviet republics, andGermany, newly consolidated again as a team following thereunification of the formerEast andWest Germany in 1990. The event also saw the debut of eight nations in the Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympic program has grown this time with the addition of 11 new events. While sports that were already on the program received 5 new events (2 new events in cross-country skiing, at the same time women were allowed to compete in biathlon for the first time and won 3 events exclusive to them.) Another 6 events were added with the implementation of 2 sports that were demonstrated 4 years earlier (freestyle skiing and short track speed skating). These were the last Winter Olympics to includedemonstration sports, consisting ofcurling,aerials and ski ballet, andspeed skiing. Due to a rule change implemented in 1986, this was the last edition in the history of the Winter Olympic Games in which all speed skating events were held in an open-air venue.
A record-breaking seven locations bid for the games. The non-winning bids were from Anchorage, Berchtesgaden, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Falun, Lillehammer, and Sofia. The 91stIOC Session, held inLausanne on 17 October 1986, voted Albertville the host of the Games.[4]
The 1992 Olympic Winter Games marked the last time both the Winter and Summer games were held in the same year. The 1992 Winter Olympics also marked the last timeFrance hosted the Olympics until2024, whenParis became the second city to host the Summer Olympics three times.[7]
The Oxford Olympics Study established the outturn cost of the Albertville 1992 Winter Olympics at US$2.0 billion (in 2015-dollars) and cost overrun at 137% in real terms.[8] This includes sports-related costs only, that is: (i)operational costs incurred by the organizing committee to stage the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services; and (ii)direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build, e.g., the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games. Indirect capital costs were not included, e.g. road, rail, or airport infrastructure, or hotel upgrades or other business investment incurred in preparation for the Games but not directly related to their staging. In comparison, the cost and cost overrun of the2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics were US$2.5 billion and 13%, respectively, while the2014 Sochi Winter Olympics (the most costly Olympics to date) had costs and cost overrun at US$51 billion and 289%, respectively.[9] The average cost for the Winter Games since 1960 is US$3.1 billion, while the average cost overrun is 142%.[citation needed]
The 1992 Winter Gamesmascot,Magique (Magic), was a small imp in the shape of a star and a cube. The mascot was created by Philippe Mairesse and replaced the bid mascot, which was a mountain goat.[10] The star shape symbolized dreams and imagination, while the mascot's red and blue colors originated from theFrench flag.
This was the last time demonstration events were included in the Winter Olympics program. Of the 8 events that were under evaluation, 4 received the endorsement to be included in an official form in future editions of the Games (Curling tournaments and theaerials events on thefreestyle skiing). The other four events (speed skiing and skiing ballet events on the freestyle skiing) were rejected and have not since returned.
Curling – Was an official sport in the Olympic program in1924, after which it was a demonstration sport twice, in1932 and1988. There was a possibility of re-inclusion inLillehammer 1994, but in 1990 the IOC Executive Committee rejected its return as an official sport. The IOC accepted its return inNagano 1998.[11]
Speed skiing – Considered one of the most dangerous events in the sporting world, the event won a chance to be evaluated by the members of the International Olympic Committee and the FIS, with the possibility of appearing in the program of a future edition. However, this possibility was extinguished when Swiss skierNicolas Bochatay ran into a snow-grooming vehicle during a training run, dying immediately. According to reports,Bochatay was moving at a speed of more than 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph) and was unable to hear the machine's warning siren. His death is the subject of several controversies, as speed skiing was not a part of the official program. After this incident, the sport was excluded from any evaluation for future additions to the Olympic program.[13]
Sixty-four nations sent competitors to the 1992 Olympics, including seven nations making their first appearance at a Winter Olympics.[14] Following thecollapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, six former-Soviet bloc nations chose to form aUnified Team, while theBaltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania competed as independent nations for the first time since 1936.[15] Czechoslovakia made its last appearance in the Winter Olympics beforeits dissolution at the end of 1992.United Nations Security Council Resolution 757 took effect on 30 May 1992 (97 days after the closing ceremonies), and Yugoslav athletes were able to participate under their country's national symbols. It also suspended the activities of theYugoslav Olympic Committee, making the country's athletes ineligible to compete on the1992 Summer Olympics.[16] Despite this, some of their athletes classified in individual sports and gained authorization to compete asIndependent Olympic Participants (which also happened at the1992 Summer Paralympics). Yugoslav athletesreturned to the Olympic Games in the 1996 Summer Olympics, when only Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo were still part of the country. The 1992 Winter Olympics were the first time since the1964 Summer Olympics that Germany competed with a unified team. SevenNational Olympic Committees sent their first delegations to the Winter Olympics: Algeria, Bermuda, Brazil, Honduras, Ireland, Swaziland, Croatia, and Slovenia (the last two making their first appearances at any Olympics, just a few months after their respective declarations of independence fromYugoslavia). Through the2022 Winter Olympics, this has been the only participation of Swaziland (now Eswatini) and Honduras in an edition of the Winter Olympics.[17]
^Flyvbjerg, Bent; Stewart, Allison; Budzier, Alexander (2016).The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games. Oxford: Saïd Business School Working Papers (Oxford: University of Oxford). pp. 9–13.SSRN2804554.
