Tignes-Albertville 1992
A bird with broken wings, soaring high across the peak of a mountain was the image, designed by Jean-Michel Folon, used to reflect the sporting abilities of the athletes at the Tignes-Albertville 1992 Paralympic Winter Games.
Due to lack of entries and suitable venues to host the Ice sports, only Alpine and Nordic Skiing (Biathlon and Cross-Country Skiing) competitions were held. There were a total of 79 medal events held over 8 days of competition, from 25 March to 1 April. However, this allowed, for the first time, demonstration events in Alpine and Nordic Skiing for athletes with an intellectual disability and Biathlon for athletes with a visual impairment.
A total of 365 athletes (288 men and 77 women) took part in the competitions, representing 24 countries. For the first time at Paralympic Winter Games, all athletes were accommodated in a centralized Athlete’s Village instead of hotels.
The Games were officially opened on 25 March by French President Francois Mitterand. The Opening Ceremony and all other ceremonial events were held in front of the finish area for the Alpine Skiing events. The Paralympic Flame was lit by Luc Sabatier and the Athlete’s Oath taken by Ludovic Rey Robert.
A friendly face welcomed visitors to Tignes. The official mascot, Alpy, designed by Vincent Thiebaut, represented the summit of the Grande Motte mountain in Tignes. Alpy was shown on a mono-ski to demonstrate its athleticism and the colours of white, green and blue were used to represent purity/snow, hope/nature and discipline/the lake.
German Alpine Skier Reinhild Moeller took home a haul of four gold medals and together with teammates Gerd Schoenfelder (Alpine Skiing) and Frank Hoefle (Biathlon and Cross-Country Skiing) who each won three golds, helped the German team to their second place finish on the medal tally with 38 medals. Overall honours went to the United States with a total of 45 medals, assisted by the three Alpine Skiing gold medals won by Nancy Gustafson. A Unified Team, made up of athletes from the former Soviet Union, placed third on the overall medal tally (21 medals in total). The top athletes in this team were Nikolai Ilioutchenko and Kupchinski, who each won three golds in the Cross-Country Skiing events.
The Games were covered by 300 journalists and 15 reporters from various televisions channels.
