Venues of the 1998 Winter Olympics

The biggest venue controversy was at Happo'one resort on the length of the men's downhill and the battle that ensued to the point where skiing officials threatened to pull the event entirely before a compromise was reached three months before the Olympics.

Those Olympics were abandoned in 1937, when Japan invaded China for the second time, forcing Sapporo's withdrawal.

When the IOC session was held in Tokyo in September 1990, Nagano was among the cities launching promotional campaign for the 1998 Winter Olympics.

The following June at the IOC session in Birmingham, England, Nagano was awarded the 1998 Games in the fifth round, defeating Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States by four votes.

The venue was moved to Nozawa Onsen Ski Resort following an environmental assessment of the area that included nests of goshawks and buzzards under CITES, the 1973 global endangered species act better known as the "Washington Convention", before construction began.

Figure skating was planned originally for a municipally owned gymnasium in Nagano, but was abandoned to it not having enough room for expansion.

As a result, White Ring Arena was constructed to accommodate both figure and short track speed skating.

[22] For test events, M-Wave Arena in Nagano hosted the World Allround Speed Skating Championships in 1997.

[27] Snow Harp had the men's 30 km take place after 18 hours of heavy, wet snowfall which was won by Finland's Mika Myllylä.

[32] Finland's Jani Soininen jumped 89 meters to advance one point ahead of Japan's Kazuyoshi Funaki.

[35] At the time of the cancellation, 16 of the 73 skiers had completed the course, including the leader Alexandr Popov of Belarus.

[35] The rerun race would be won by Norway's Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who was leading Popov during the first run after 8 km before the event was cancelled.