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
Venues of the 1992 Winter Olympics had its first alpine skiing World Cup events run in December 1968. The Olympic test held there in December 1990 was won by 1980 Winter Olympics men's downhill gold medalist Leonhard Stock of Austria. Tignes hosted of the first FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in February 1986. Construction on most of the venues took place between 1987 and mid 1990 in time for the late 1990 and early 1991 test events. This was the last Winter Olympics in which speed skating was held outdoors. As a result, weather played a factor in three of the ten events run. In the