NewsHour Extra:

Security Overkill: How much security at the Winter Olympics is too much?

Going for the Gold: The 2000 Summer Olympic Games

NewsHour Features:

The Olympians:
Ray Suarez talks with three Olympic athletes about the 2002 Winter Games. (2/8/02)

Olympic Challenge: The challenges of putting on safe and successful Winter Olympic Games. (2/05/02)

Extinguishing the Flame?
The effects the Salt Lake City bribery scandal has had on the Olympics. (3/18/99)

Cleaning House:
The 2002 Olympic Organizing Committee names a new chairman--and new rules. (05/08/01)

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The official 2002 Winter Games

The International Olympic Committee

United States Olympic Committee

The 2004 Summer Games in Athens

Olympic Dreams
February 13, 2002

Seventeen-year-old Clint Jones spends hours every day sliding down a ramp, launching himself into the air at 60 mph, and traveling over 390 feet in the air to land safely on the ground again.

As the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic ski team, Jones is one of 2,500 athletes from around the world gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Drawing an international television audience estimated at over 3 billion, the Olympic Games hope to promote the best the world has to offer.

The Games highlight the best athletes, the best sportsmanship, and a general feeling that despite the world's political problems, we all can get along and play well together.

Different than the Summer Games

The Winter Olympic Games as we known them aren't as old as the modern Summer Games, which began in Greece in 1896.

The winter competitions formally began back in 1924.

The idea of a snow and ice-oriented sports competition began in Sweden with a very popular winter sports competition called the "Nordic Games."

Despite the reluctance of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a similar event was held in Chamonix, France in 1924 and named the Winter Olympics afterward.

The Winter and Summer Olympics used to come in the same year, but in the early 1990s, the IOC decided to split them apart so that we could have an Olympics every two years instead of every four years.

The Salt Lake City games are the 19th Winter Olympics. Although the Winter Games are often thought of as the odd, smaller cousin of the Summer Games, many of the sports have small but intense groups of followers.

There are winter sports that seem strange (like the game played with stones and brooms called curling) and others that seem as old as snow itself (skiing).

Two sports are new this year: skeleton, an extremely fast form of sledding headfirst down an icy chute; and women's bobsled.

The biathlon, cross-country, Nordic skiing, and short-track speed skating all have new events.

And if you're into X-treme sports, the Olympics now has freestyle skiing and snowboarding, which are becoming more and more popular with young Americans.

The United States itself has pledged to win 20 medals this year, which would be an all-time record.

Scandal and terror

It seems like ages ago, but back in November 1998, the Salt Lake City Games were tainted by scandal.

Utah officials were accused of spending $1 million in bribes to influence IOC members to choose Salt Lake City as the Olympic host.

At the same time, a longtime IOC member said bribery was a standard practice in selecting host cities. Both events touched off the worst scandal in modern Olympic history.

The IOC expelled six members, four more were pushed to resign, and many of the rules that govern how cities are chosen were completely rewritten.

Utah organizers began to worry - no one was sure that people would want to attend or even watch the games.

Fast forward to late summer 2001. Salt Lake City had spent millions of dollars on new buildings and facilities when terror struck the East Coast on September 11.

Suddenly, the Olympics did not seem so important as people focused more on their own lives and loved ones.

Sponsors and NBC, who paid millions of dollars to televise the games, were nervous that not many people would tune in to the games.

And then there was the issue of security. Ever since Atlanta's Olympic Park bombing incident in 1996, law enforcement agencies have known they would have to redesign Salt Lake's security.

After September 2001, the security budget skyrocketed to over $300 million.

More than 60 federal, state and local organizations are working together at the Games, along with over 16,000 law-enforcement personnel.

Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge has called Salt Lake the safest place in the world, but there are no guarantees.

Country against country

So will people pay attention to the 2002 Winter Games?

If last Friday's Opening Ceremony was any indication, Americans are still interested in the traditional themes of one country against another, the excitement of breaking records, and the thrill of winning Olympic medals.

More than one out of every four American homes tuned in to the ceremony that featured Sting, President Bush and a flag from the World Trade Center bombing site.

International reaction to the show of American patriotism was mixed. Some foreign newspapers said the ceremony diverted attention away from the purpose of the games - to play sports.

However some countries showed their support during the opening parade. French athletes carried flags that reflected both France and the U.S.

The largest Winter Olympics ever

Eighty countries from around the world are participating in more sports than ever before, making this the largest Winter Olympic Games ever.

Will an athlete from Africa or South America win their continent's first winter medal?

Will the snow-covered countries of Norway and Sweden continue to dominate with their record amounts of total medals?

Or will China, with its largest group of winter athletes ever, finally take home a winter medal?

We'll all have to tune in and find out.

For more on the events and the athletes, check out
the official 2002 Olympic Games Web site.