2002 Winter Olympics

XIX Olympic Winter Games
Emblem of the 2002 Winter Olympics[a]
Host citySalt Lake City, Utah, United States
MottoLight the Fire Within
Nations78
Athletes2,399 (1,513 men, 886 women)
Events78 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)
OpeningFebruary 8, 2002
ClosingFebruary 24, 2002
Opened by
Cauldron
Members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, led by team captain Mike Eruzione
StadiumRice–Eccles Stadium
Winter
Summer
2002 Winter Paralympics
Countdown clock used for the games in the shape of an arrowhead
Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics
Curling at The Ice Sheet at Ogden on February 22, 2002
2002 Olympic Winter Games $5 coin created by the U.S. Mint

The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (Arapaho: Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: Tit'-so-pi 2002; Navajo: Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: Soónkahni 2002), was an international winter multi-sport event that was held from February 8 to 24, 2002, in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.

Salt Lake City was selected as the host city in June 1995 at the 104th IOC Session. They were the eighth Olympics to be hosted by the United States, and the most recent to be held in the country until 2028, when Los Angeles will host the future 34th Summer Olympics. The 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics were both organized by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), the first time that both events were organized by a single committee, and inspiring other Olympic and Paralympic games to be organized by such since then.[1]

The Games featured 2,399 athletes from 78 nations, participating in 78 events in 15 disciplines. Norway topped the medal table, with 13 gold and 25 medals overall, while Germany finished with the most total medals, winning 36 (with 12 of them gold). The hosting United States was third by gold medals and second by overall medals, with 10 and 34 respectively. Australia notably became the first Southern Hemisphere country to ever win gold medals at the Winter Olympics.

The Games finished with a budgetary surplus of US$40 million; the surplus was used to fund the formation of the Utah Athletic Foundation—which has continued to maintain the facilities built for these Olympics. The venues have continued to be used for national and international winter sports events after the Olympics, while the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee has backed the possibility of Salt Lake City bidding for a future Winter Olympics, notably the 2034 Winter Olympics.


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  1. ^ Salt Lake Organizing Committee (2002). Official Report of the XIX Olympic Winter Games (PDF). p. 35. ISBN 978-0-9717961-0-2. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 8, 2010. Retrieved October 20, 2010.