About
The Winter Games settled in Italy for the second time, on this occasion finding a home in the city of Torino and the surrounding mountain resorts of Sestriere and Bardonecchia. The hosts staged the largest Winter Olympics yet, with a substantial 80 nations contesting 84 events, and a record 26 of those taking home medals. Germany topped the table with 11 gold medals, but Norway dropped from the top spot four years earlier to a lowly 13th place in Torino, with just two titles to their name.
The Austrian team were engulfed by controversy when Italian police raided their headquarters on suspicion of doping offences, prompting several members of their team to flee the Games. All tests on their remaining athletes proved negative, and Austrian skiers overcame the disturbance to win 14 of the available 30 medals in their sport.
South Korea dominated short-track speed skating, gaining 10 of a possible 24 medals. In the women’s events, Sun-Yu Jin earned three gold medals, and for the men, Hyun-Soo Ahn won three golds and one bronze. Other multiple champions in Torino included Canadian Cindy Klassen, who earned medals in five of the six women’s speed skating events.
There was plenty of evidence that the Olympic spirit was alive and well in Italy. Perhaps the greatest example of this was during the cross-country skiing team sprint, when Sara Renner of Canada broke one of her poles. Norwegian head coach Bjørnar Håkensmoen, seeing her struggle, handed her one of his which allowed Renner to help her team finish second, and simulateously relegated the generous coach’s team out of the medal positions.
Team GB
Skeleton bobsleigh competitor Shelley Rudman claimed a surprise silver medal for Team GB. The 24 year-old from Wiltshire had only taken up the event after watching Alex Coomber speed to a bronze medal at the 2002 Games, and her trip to Italy four years later initially looked under threat as she struggled to fund a new sled. However, residents of her home town of Pewsey rallied around her to raise the necessary £4000, and in doing so helped create one of Britain’s most unexpected Winter Olympic success stories.
Initially aiming for a top ten finish, Rudman alerted the rest of the field by setting the fastest time in practice, and was virtually transformed from relative unknown to genuine medal hope on the spot. Her first heat left her in fourth place and very much in with a hope, but her second was even better, placing her just three tenths of a second the behind eventual winner, Maya Pedersen of Switzerland. Originally intended as a stepping stone towards the Vancouver Games in 2010, the Torino Olympics made an immediate star of Shelley Rudman.