The XVI Olympic Winter Games were held from 8 to 23 February 1992 in and around Albertville, France.
A record-breaking seven locations bid for the games. The 91st IOC Session, held in Lausanne on October 17, 1986, voted Albertville the host of the Games beating Anchorage, Berchtesgaden, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Falun, Lillehammer, and Sofia.
The 1992 Winter Olympics were the last Winter Games held in the same year as the Summer Olympics. The Games were the fifth Olympic Games held in France and the country's third Winter Olympics, after the 1924 Winter Games in Chamonix and the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble.
Sixty-four National Olympic Committees and 1,801 athletes participated in six sports and fifty-seven events. 18 events took place in Albertville. The 39 other events were held in the nearby 9 villages and resorts around Savoie: Courchevel, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Les Menuires, Les Saisies, Méribel, Pralognan-la-Vanoise, Tignes, and Val d'Isère.
The Men's races in Alpine skiing were held at Val d’Isère, except for the Slalom, which was held in Les Menuires. All five women's events were held in Méribel.
Petra Kronberger of Austria led the individual medal table with two gold medals in Slalom and the Alpine Combined, while Alberto Tomba of Italy was the most successful male skier with two medals, one gold in Giant Slalom and one silver in the Slalom.
Marc Girardelli's two silver medals in Giant Slalom and Super-G were the first won for Luxembourg in the Winter Olympics and made him its most successful Olympic athlete to date.
Annelise Coberger's silver medal in the women's Slalom was New Zealand's first, and through 2014, only Winter Olympic medal.
Norway's four medals were its first in Alpine Skiing in 40 years, since 1952 in Oslo.
Blanca Fernández Ochoa won the bronze medal in the Slalom. It was the second medal in Alpine Skiing for Spain. Her brother Francisco Fernández Ochoa won the gold medal in slalom at the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan.
After his Olympic double in Calgary in 1988, Alberto “la Bomba” Tomba became the best technical skier in the world. He won the World Cup crystal globes in Slalom and Giant Slalom. At the 1992 Games in Albertville, he emerged the winner in the Giant Slalom after an epic battle with Marc Girardelli and Kjetil Andre Aamodt on the fearsome Face de Bellevarde in Val d'Isère. Tomba thus became the first, and so far only, skier in history to retain his title in this discipline.
In the Slalom at Les Ménuires, he placed sixth in the first run, but after setting the best time in the second run he finished in second position. He was beaten by 0.28 seconds by Norway’s Finn Christian Jagge. Two Games, Calgary 1988 and Albertville 1992, four medals and three wins for one of the best skiers of all time.
On February 16, on the challenging Face de Bellevarde in Val d’Isère, 19-year-old Kjetil André Aamodt caused quite an upset, offering one of the Best Moments of Alpine Skiing in Albertville 1992. The young skier, a last-minute pick for the Norwegian team for the Albertville Games (after Atle Skaardal was injured and had to pull out), won a crushing victory in the Super-G. Wearing bib number 3, he made a major mistake 34 seconds into the race which, he would later explain, "took all the pressure away, because you’ve got nothing left to lose." He went full attack and crossed the finish line 0.71 seconds ahead of the legendary Marc Girardelli. He became Norway’s first Alpine skiing Olympic champion for 40 years, and to this day remains the discipline’s youngest Olympic gold medallist.
He also won bronze in the Giant Slalom. This magnificent appearance on the Olympic stage of the double junior world champion of 1990 marked the beginning of a fabulous career that would end 14 years later with another Super-G Olympic title in Torino 2006 and an absolute record of eight medals in Alpine Skiing.
At her first Games in Albertville in 1992, Deborah Compagnoni took the gold in the Super-G. Just the day after topping the podium, she crashed heavily in the Giant Slalom, suffering the latest in a series of serious knee injuries. She left Albertville worrying whether she would ever win again.
Austria's Petra Kornberger arrived in Albertville in 1992 with a reputation as the world’s top female Alpine skier. She had won the Overall World Cup Crystal Globe in the previous two seasons.
Four years earlier in Calgary, the Austrian had made her Olympic debut as an 18-year-old rising star.
In Méribel, Petra Kronberger confirmed her condition as a favorite and won both the Combined event and the Slalom.
Austria's Patrick Ortlieb, who had yet to win a World Cup event, won the Downhill event at the 1992 Winter Olympics on La face de Bellevarde in Val d'Isère on Sunday, 9 February.
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