Canada's Olympic Skiing/Snowboarding Memories

1998 Nagano, Japan

Although unpredictable weather inflicted countless delays and hurried rescheduling, Nagano, site of the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, emerged relatively unscathed to stage the largest Winter Games with 2302 athletes and 68 events.

With the fastest interval time, Brian Stemmle came closest to winning a medal in the downhill event of the men's alpine competition. His chances ended when he caught loose snow missing a gate, and skied off course. Edi Podivinsky, in this his last Olympic Games, surprised himself by skiing well enough to place 5th.

In freestyle moguls, Jean Luc Brassard finished 4th followed by two other top-10 finishers, Ryan Johnson (7th), and Stéphane Rochon (8th), while Ann-Marie Pelchat's skied into 5th place in the women's event. In aerial competitions, Nicolas Fontaine (10th), Jeff Bean (11th) and Andy Capicik (12th), all placed in the top-15 while Veronica Brenner placed 9th in the women's event.

Snowboarding debuted as an official discipline. Ross Rebagliati won Canada's only snowboarding medal, a gold in the parallel slalom event. Canada's joy quickly turned to dismay when Rebagliati was stripped of the medal for testing positive for marijuana. Since no formal agreement existed between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Ski Federation (FIS) to confirm marijuana as a banned substance, the medal was subsequently returned to him. Other excellent performances by the snowboarding team were Maëlle Ricker (5th) and Michael Michalchuck (8th) in the halfpipe events.

Opening date: February 7, 1998
Closing date: February 22, 1998
Candidate cities: Aoste (ITA), Jaca (ESP), Oestersund (SWE), Salt Lake City (USA)

To return to 'Canada's Olympic Skiing/Snowboarding Memories' exhibit, please click here.

For a brief history of the Olympic Games, please click here.

To learn more about the skiing disciplines at the Olympic Winter Games, please click here.