Albertville 1992 - ORTO '92 Broadcast Opening Sequence (20s Version)

Описание: Copyright (c) 1992 Olympics Radio and Television Organization

The 16th edition of these Winter Olympics, held from 8 to 23 February 1992 in and around Albertville - a town in the region of Savoie located in the French alps, heralded the end of an era for the Modern Olympic Games itself. Albertville 1992 was not just the last edition that demonstration sports were included in the Olympic programme, but was also the last time that the Winter Games took place in the same year as the Summer Olympics, as in 1986, the IOC decided to separate both Games and arrange for them to take place in alternating even-numbered years.

Following the footsteps set by Chamonix in the inaugural Winter Games of 1924 and Grenoble in the 1968 edition, Albertville became France's third Winter Olympic city on 17 October 1986 after winning on the sixth ballot by 51 votes during the IOC's 91st session held at Lausanne. The other cities that had made the final shortlist in the race for the 1992 Winter Games are Anchorage, Alaska in the US, Berchtesgaden - which was still part of West Germany at the time of the bidding procedure, Cortina d'Ampezzo - the site of the 1956 Games, Lillehammer (which would go on to be selected to stage the next Winter Olympics in 1994), Falun in Sweden, and the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

But Albertville itself, however, only hosted the ice events and both the opening and closing ceremonies, with all other outdoor sports as well as the Olympic village and press centre spread across the Savoie region, making use of the dense network of winter sports resorts.

Around 1,801 athletes from 64 countries competed, and 57 medal events in 6 sports were contested in the 1992 Games, with freestyle skiing (only moguls skiing was included) and short-track speed skating being featured for the first time as Olympic sports, while women's biathlon also had its debut as a medal event. Among the few demonstration sports showcased are curling (which went on to be accepted by the IOC as an official sport starting in Nagano 1998), speed skiing (the sport was deemed too dangerous to be included in future Winter Olympiads after several recorded deaths), and other freestyle skiing events such as aerials (which became a medal event two years later at Lillehammer) and ski ballet.

During the Olympics, as SFR Yugoslavia began to break apart, newcomers Croatia and Slovenia found their way to the French alps for the first time as independent nations, while the former Soviet republics, reeling from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, fielded the so-called 'Unified Team' in order to compete. The Games also welcomed back the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; both Estonia and Latvia hadn't participated since 1936, and Lithuania since 1928.

Also, the Albertville Games saw Germany competing for the first time (since the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo) as a unified country. A successful team it was too: They became the big winners of these Winter Games, being the topnotchers of the medal table after collecting 26 medals - 10 of which were gold. The Germans finished ahead of the unified team, which placed second with 9 golds and 23 medals overall, and at third place was Norway, which also grabbed home 9 gold medals, but won only 20 medals of any color.

Out of the 13 venues used for the Albertville Games, 12 remain in use today for recreational purposes and competitive-level ice and snow sports, while the transport improvements accelerated by the event aided the growth of the local ski industry and improved access to the region. Since the Winter Olympiad, Savoie's resorts have also improved their infrastructure and facilities to meet growing demand and have taken steps to mitigate environmental impacts.