2002 Winter Paralympics
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The 2002 Winter Paralympics, the eighth
Paralympic Winter Games The Winter Paralympic Games is an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete in snow and ice sports. The event includes athletes with mobility impairments, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. Th ...
, were held in
Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, Utah, United States, from March 7 to 16, 2002. A total of 416 athletes from 36 nations participated. They were the first Winter Paralympics in the American continent. These were the first Paralympic Winter Games for Andorra, Chile, China, Croatia, Greece, and Hungary.
Ragnhild Myklebust Ragnhild Myklebust, PLY is a Norwegian Nordic skier and multiple gold medal winner at the Paralympic Games. , she holds the record for the most ever medals won at the Winter Paralympics, having won 27 medals, of ...
of Norway won five gold medals in skiing and biathlon, becoming the most successful Winter Paralympic athlete of all time with 22 medals, 17 of them gold.


Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held on 7 March 2002 at Rice-Eccles Stadium, with more than 40,000 spectators. Muffy Davis and
Chris Waddell Chris Waddell (born 1968) is an American Paralympic sit-skier and wheelchair track athlete. He was a promising non-disabled skier while attending Middlebury College in Vermont, before a skiing accident left him paralysed from the waist down. As ...
jointly lit the Paralympic cauldron.


Closing ceremony

The closing ceremony with a more than 25.000 audience was held on 16 March 2002 at the Olympic Medals Plaza in downtown
Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
.


Sports

The games consisted of four disciplines in three sports, with 92 medal events in total. * * * *


Venues

In total 5 venues were used at the
2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...
around 4 cities and towns.


Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

* Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium – opening ceremonies *2002 Olympic Medals Plaza – closing ceremonies


Weber County, Utah Weber County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,223, making it Utah's fourth-most populous county. Its county seat and largest city is Ogden, the home of Weber State University. The county ...

*
Snowbasin Snowbasin Resort is a ski resort in the western United States, located in Weber County, Utah, northeast of Salt Lake City, on the back (east) side of the Wasatch Range. Opened in 1939, as part of an effort by the city of Ogden to restore the W ...
: Alpine skiing


Wasatch County, Utah Wasatch County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 23,530. Its county seat and largest city is Heber City. The county was named for a Ute Native American word meaning ''mountain pa ...

*
Soldier Hollow Soldier Hollow is a cross-country ski venue located at the mouth of a Soldier Hollow (Utah), hollow of the same name about southeast of Salt Lake City in Wasatch Mountain State Park in northwestern Wasatch County, Utah, Wasatch County, Utah, Un ...
: Biathlon and Cross-Country


West Valley City, Utah West Valley City is a city in Salt Lake County and a suburb of Salt Lake City in the U.S. state of Utah. The population was 140,230 at the 2020 census, making it the second-largest city in Utah. The city incorporated in 1980 from a large, quic ...

*
E Center The Maverik Center, originally known as the E Center, is a 12,000-seat multi-purpose arena located in West Valley City, Utah, United States. Construction on the arena started in 1996 and was completed in time to hold its first event on September ...
: Ice sledge hockey


Medal table

The top 10
NPCs A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster o ...
by number of gold medals are listed below. The host nation (United States) is highlighted.


Participating National Paralympics Committees

36 nations qualified athletes for the games. Six countries:
Andorra , image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg , symbol_type = Coat of arms , national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none (Latin)"United virtue is stro ...
,
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
,
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
and
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
all made their debut appearances.
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
was the only nation who did not send a delegation after having participated in the previous games.


Symbol and mascot of the games


Paralympic Emblem

The logo of the Salt Lake 2002 Paralympic Winter Games is made up of three distinct marks. The sphere on the top represents the head of the Paralympic athlete and also symbolizes the global unity of the Paralympic Movement. Two broad fluid lines represent the athlete in motion. The three
taegeuk ''Taegeuk'' (, ) is a Korean term cognate with the Chinese term ''Taiji'' ( Wade-Giles spelling: ''T'ai-chi''), meaning "supreme ultimate", although it can also be translated as "great polarity / duality". The symbol was chosen for the design ...
s beneath the athlete reproduce the green, red and blue marks on the Paralympic Flag.


Mascot

The
mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
for the Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City 2002 was Otto the
otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...
.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
consider otters to be fast swimmers, though in some stories a bit of a show-off.Erdoes, Richard and Ortiz, Alfonso. ''American Indian Myths and Legends.'' p. 312 After being nearly wiped out by pollution and over-trapping the river otter has been reintroduced to
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
and can be seen along the banks of the
Green River Green River may refer to: Rivers Canada * Green River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Lillooet River *Green River, a tributary of the Saint John River, also known by its French name of Rivière Verte *Green River (Ontario), a tributary of ...
and near Flaming Gorge. The otter was chosen as the official mascot of the Salt Lake 2002 Paralympic Winter Games because he embodies vitality and agility, and represents the spirit of every Paralympian.


See also

*
2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...
* 2007 Winter Deaflympics


References


External links


Official siteInternational Paralympic CommitteeParalympics at SVT's open archive (including the 2002 event)
{{Authority control
Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...
Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...
Sports competitions in Salt Lake City Winter Paralympic Games 2002 in sports in Utah Winter multi-sport events in the United States 2000s in Salt Lake City March 2002 sports events in the United States