| 1998 Winter Olympics medals | |
|---|---|
| Location | Nagano, Japan |
| Highlights | |
| Most gold medals |  Germany (12) |
| Most total medals | Germany (29) |
| Medalling NOCs | 24 |
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| 1998 Winter Olympics |
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The1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, were a wintermulti-sport event held inNagano, Japan, from 7 to 22 February 1998.[1] Twenty-four nations earned medals at these Games, and fifteen won at least one gold medal; forty-eight countries left the Olympics without winning a medal. Competitors fromGermany earned the highest number of gold medals (12) and the most overall medals (29). With 10 gold medals and 25 overall medals,Norway finished second in both categories.[2]Denmark won its first – and as of 2026 only – Winter Olympics medal,[3] whileBulgaria and theCzech Republic won their first Winter Games gold medals.[4][5]Azerbaijan,Kenya,Macedonia,Uruguay, andVenezuela competed for the first time, but none of them won a medal.[6]
Varying statistics are reported for the number of participants at the 1998 Winter Olympics. TheSports-Reference website states that 2,180 athletes from 72 nations participated in 68 events from 14sports and disciplines.[2] Olympic historianBill Mallon, in hisHistorical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement, agrees with the figure of 2,180 participants.[7] In contrast, theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) website reports that 2,176 athletes competed at the Games.[6] The sport ofcurling returned after a single appearance in the1924 Olympics,snowboarding was added as a new sport, andwomen's ice hockey made its first appearance in the Olympics.[6]
The leading medal winner at the Games wasRussian skierLarisa Lazutina, who won five medals, including three golds.[2] The only other athlete to win three gold medals was Norwegian skierBjørn Dæhlie, who won four medals overall, making him the first Winter Olympian to win twelve career medals, eight of which were gold.[2][8] Nine other athletes won three medals, including three Germans.[2]Americanfigure skaterTara Lipinski became the youngest competitor in Winter Olympics history to earn a gold medal in an individual event.[6]
The medal table is based on information provided by theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) and is consistent with IOC conventional sorting in its published medal tables. The table uses theOlympic medal table sorting method. By default, the table is ordered by the number of gold medals the athletes from a nation have won, where a nation is an entity represented by a NOC. The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals.[11][12] If teams are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically by theirIOC country code.[13]
In thetwo-man bobsleigh competition, a tie meant that two gold medals were awarded, so no silver medal was awarded for that event.[14] A tie for second in themen's Super G skiing competition meant that a pair of silver medals were given out, so no bronze medal was awarded for that event.[15] In thefour-man bobsleigh, a tie for third resulted in the awarding of two bronze medals.[16] Due to these ties, the number of gold medals awarded was one more than the number of silver or bronze medals. Insnowboarding,CanadianRoss Rebagliati won the gold medal in the men's Giant Slalom, but it was briefly stripped by the IOC after he tested positive for marijuana. After the Canadian Olympic Association filed an appeal, however, the IOC's decision was overturned.[17]
* Host nation (Japan)
| Rank | NOC | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Germany | 12 | 9 | 8 | 29 |
| 2 |  Norway | 10 | 10 | 5 | 25 |
| 3 |  Russia | 9 | 6 | 3 | 18 |
| 4 |  Canada | 6 | 5 | 4 | 15 |
| 5 |  United States | 6 | 3 | 4 | 13 |
| 6 |  Netherlands | 5 | 4 | 2 | 11 |
| 7 | Japan* | 5 | 1 | 4 | 10 |
| 8 |  Austria | 3 | 5 | 9 | 17 |
| 9 |  South Korea | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| 10 |  Italy | 2 | 6 | 2 | 10 |
| 11 |  Finland | 2 | 4 | 6 | 12 |
| 12 |  Switzerland | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| 13 |  France | 2 | 1 | 5 | 8 |
| 14 |  Czech Republic | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 15 |  Bulgaria | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 16 |  China | 0 | 6 | 2 | 8 |
| 17 |  Sweden | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 18 |  Denmark | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 Ukraine | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 20 |  Belarus | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
 Kazakhstan | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| 22 |  Australia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 Belgium | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
 Great Britain | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Totals (24 entries) | 69 | 68 | 68 | 205 | |
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