Venues overview

In the Organising Committee’s efforts to protect the environment and keep construction work to a minimum, half of the Games competition venues were existing or temporary sites. For example, existing venues were used for the skiing, biathlon and curling competitions.

Global coverage of the Olympic Winter Games helped Nagano become one of Japan’s leading winter sports destinations and increased its popularity with skiers and snowboarders from overseas.

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. Meanwhile, the 18 Shiga Kogen ski resorts now make up Japan’s largest interconnected ski area and offer more than 80km of slopes and some of the country’s finest snow.

The seven new venues all had unique architectural designs and evocative names, such as Big Hat, White Ring, Snow Harp and Aqua Wing. The M-Wave, for instance, was named after the shape of its suspended roof, which represents the rugged peaks of Nagano’s mountain ranges.

Six of the Games’ seven new venues are still in use today. The seventh venue, the Spiral sliding centre, closed in 2018.

The Nagano Olympic Stadium was also built specially for the Games. It is now a baseball stadium, used by local amateur clubs and the professional team the Shinano Grandserows. It is also the finishing point for the annual Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon.

The 1,032 apartments in the Olympic Village are all occupied today, providing a mix of both private and social housing for older people.