Venues of the 1998 Winter Olympics the event entirely before a compromise was reached three months before the Olympics. M-Wave has hosted three World Speed Skating Championships since the Olympics while the Spiral has hosted a couple of World championships in bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton. Nagano first attempted to host the Winter Olympics in 1940, but lost out to Sapporo. Those Olympics were abandoned in 1937 when Japan invaded China for the second time, forcing Sapporo's withdrawal. The city tried again for the Winter Olympics in 1968 in 1961, but lost out in domestic voting to Sapporo who in turn lost out to Grenoble, France in
Australia at the Winter Olympics is currently non-existent in Australia. Many major Australian cities have indoor ice rinks, enabling participation in some winter sports regardless of the climate. These began to appear at the end of the 19th century, and ice hockey was played as early as 1904. Sydney hosted the 1991 short-track speed skating World Championships, and the 2001 Goodwill Games—hosted in Brisbane—included figure skating. Australia has no tracks usable for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, but there is a bobsleigh push track in the Docklands area of Melbourne. In keeping with an existing tradition for Australian gold medallists at the Summer Olympics, Bradbury, Camplin