Existing and temporary venues

The Organising Committee used the courses and buildings already in place at Happo’one (Alpine skiing), Iizuna Kogen (freestyle skiing), Nozawa Onsen (biathlon) and Shiga Kogen-Kanbayashi (snowboard).

In preparation for the Games, construction work at these sites was kept to an absolute minimum. No new permanent facilities were built, as the sites were located in national parks. Planning permission had to be sought from the Japanese Environment Agency for 149 temporary facilities erected at the sites to complement existing infrastructure.

Happo’one is one of the largest and oldest resorts in the Hakuba ski area, which is popular with Korean, Australian and European visitors thanks to its deep snow, challenging pistes and excellent facilities.

Nozawa Onsen’s Olympic biathlon course also remains open, and its cross-country trails and pistes are popular with foreign skiers too (the shooting range was dismantled after the Games). Over 400,000 of them visited in 2018/19, and the resort upgraded its facilities and installed new gondolas to meet growing demand.

Two existing snow venues have closed down, however: the Iizuna Kogen ski area and the Kanbayashi Snowboard Park, due to financial difficulties caused by competition from other nearby resorts and a lack of snowfall.

Kazakoshi Park in Karuizawa is also still in place and is now a multi-purpose facility offering ice skating, ice hockey, tennis, baseball, football and curling – the sport it hosted at Nagano 1998.

Temporary structures were erected at the two other competition sites: Mount Higashidate and Mount Yakebitai, in Shiga Kogen. Though they were dismantled as planned after the Games, the areas were used for skiing and snowboarding again the following year, as Shiga Kogen developed and grew. Offering more than 80km of slopes and some of the country’s finest snow, the 18 Shiga Kogen ski resorts now make up Japan’s largest interconnected ski area.