1998 Winter Olympic Games

Visit the Sounds page to listen to the official Nagano Olympics Theme Song.

Location-White Ring in Nagano, Japan

Schedule-

• Feb 8-Pairs Short Program
• Feb 10-Pairs Long Program
• Feb 12-Mens Short Program
• Feb 13-Ice Dance Compulsories
• Feb 14-Mens Long Program
• Feb 15-Ice Dance Original Program
• Feb 16-Ice Dance Free Program
• Feb 18-Womens Short Program
• Feb 20-Womens Long Program
• Feb 21-Olympics Exhibition

Programs-Short: Swan Lake; Long: Dark Eyes

Photos-

Review-

Short Program

The first thing I noticed watching the short program on T.V. was that Anton looked kind of nervous before he took the ice. The enire program was almost flawless, except a fall by Anton on the opening double axel. Elena and Anton had no trouble with the double split twist, lifts, and spins. I think the highlight of the program was the death spiral at the end. Scores and ordinals:

Long Program

I heard that Elena and Anton had a horrible practice session the day of the long program, as did their teammates Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev. Elena and Anton completed perfect triple toe loops and double axels, along with a clean throw triple loop and throw triple salchow. Elena wasn't able to make the full three rotations on the split twist, only two and a half, which is not too surprising considering the fact that B&S had only mastered the move fairly shortly before the Olympics. They were skating with great speed and would have contended for the gold, but toppled over on the final lift and ended up with the silver behind Kazakova and Dmitriev who had recovered from their practice session. Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer, the reigning World Champions at the time, took third. Long program scores for B&S:

Final Standings-

1. Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev - RUS
2. Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze - RUS
3. Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer - GER
4. Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen - USA
5. Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao - CHN
6. Sarah Abitbol and Stephane Bernadis - FRA
7. Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov - RUS
8. Jenni Meno and Todd Sand - USA
9. Peggy Schwartz and Mirko Koenig - GER
10. Dorota Zagorska and Mariusz Suidek - POL
11. Evgenia Filonenko and Igor Marchenko - UKR
12. Kristy Sargeant and Kris Wirtz - CAN
13. Danielle McGrath and Stephen Carr - AUS
14. Marina Khalturina and Andrei Kroukov - KZK
15. Katerina Berankova and Otto Dlabola - TCH
16. Marie-Claude Savard-Gagnon and Luc Bradet - CAN
17. Sabrina Lefrancois and Nikolas Osseland - FRA
18. Inga Rodionova and Alexandr Anichenko - AZE
19. Maria Krasiltseva and Alexander Chestnikh - ARM
20. Marie Arai and Shin Amano - JPN