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
1980 Winter Olympics 1980 Winter Olympics The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIII Olympic Winter Games (French: "Les XIIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver"), was a multi-sport event which was celebrated from February 13, through February 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States. This was the second time the Upstate New York village hosted the Games, after 1932. The only other candidate city to bid for the Games was Vancouver-Garibaldi, British Columbia, Canada, which withdrew before the final vote (though Vancouver would eventually win the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.) The mascot of the Games was "Roni", a raccoon.