Carl Lewis against his main rival of the last few years, Mike Powell, the silver medalist in the event from the 1988 Olympics and the top-ranked long jumper of 1990. Lewis had at that point not lost a long jump competition in a decade, winning the 65 consecutive meets in which he competed. Powell had been unable to defeat Lewis, despite sometimes putting in jumps near world-record territory, only to see them ruled fouls or, as with other competitors such as Larry Myricks, putting in leaps that Lewis himself had only rarely surpassed, only to see Lewis surpass them on his next
Winter Olympic Games gold medal. Bjørn Dæhlie of Norway won three gold medals in Nordic skiing, becoming the most decorated Winter Olympic athlete, with eight gold medals and twelve medals overall. Austrian Hermann Maier survived a crash during the downhill competition and returned to win gold in the super-G and the giant slalom. Tara Lipinski of the United States, aged just 15, became the youngest ever female gold medallist in an individual event when she won the Ladies' Singles, a record that had stood since Sonja Henie of Norway won the same event, also aged 15, in St. Moritz in 1928. New world