1972 Winter Olympics - Highlights

Highlights

• Prior to these games, Japan had never won a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. The host country shone in Sapporo when three Japanese athletes, led by Yukio Kasaya, swept the ski jumping 70m (current K-90 normal hill) event for gold (Kasaya), silver (Akitsugu Konno), and bronze (Seiji Aochi).
• Galina Kulakova of the USSR won all three cross-country skiing events for women.
• Dutch skater Ard Schenk won three gold medals in speed skating.
• In Alpine skiing, virtual unknown Swiss Marie-Thérès Nadig won both the downhill and the giant slalom events.
• Magnar Solberg from Norway was the first repeat winner in the individual 20 km biathlon event, having first won in Grenoble.
• Spain scored its first Winter gold medal courtesy of slalom skier Francisco Fernandez Ochoa.
• American speedskaters Anne Henning and Diane Holum made the US's best showing in the Winter Games, winning two gold, a silver, and a bronze.
• Three days before the Games, controversy over amateur status arose when IOC president Avery Brundage threatened to disqualify 40 alpine skiiers who received endorsement and other deals. Austrian skier Karl Schranz, who received over $50,000 per year from ski manufacturers, was banned as an example. Meanwhile, Canada refused to send an ice hockey team, maintaining that professional ice hockey players from Communist nations were allowed to compete with no restrictions.
• On a historical note, these Games are the last where a skier won the gold medal using all-wooden skis. Since this time, top-level cross-country skiiers use skis made mostly of fibreglass synthetics.
• In female Figure skating event, American skater Janet Lynn won not only a bronze medal, but also tremendous popularity among Japanese audiences because of her artistic free program, as to make appearance on the cover of "Olympic Winter Games, Sapporo 1972" photo books published in Japan, and even on Japanese TV commercials later.
• Luge had its only tie in the history of the Winter Olympics in the men's doubles event.