2002 Winter Olympics: History and Background

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), were 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 hosts the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad. 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. These were the first Olympic Games under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency of Jacques Rogge.

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, leading to the Winter Olympics return to Salt Lake City for the 2034 games, 32 years after the city played host in 2002.

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