These are the Most Epic Winter Olympic Games Ever

The ’22 Olympics – Image source: kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Are you watching the 2022 Winter Olympic games? Well if you don’t know what to do while you are waiting for your favorite players to go, this article is for you! Keep on reading and find out about the most epic Winter Olympic games ever!

As the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing is now streaming, Winter Olympics is a hot topic. Since the beginning of the Winter Olympics in 1924 we could see the most epic Winter Olympic Games ever. Looking back on nearly 100 years of the Olympics we can’t stop wondering about all the epic moments. This is why we tried to create a list of the most memorable Olympic Games for you! What’s more, it’s also a good opportunity to learn more about sports and get better at betting! So keep on reading, and don’t forget to bet on the Beijing Olympic Games on bet365 Sportsbook!

The Most Epic Winter Olympic Games Ever: Lillehammer (1994)

On the top of our list, we have the Winter Olympics of 1994. A few years ago the Olympic Games didn’t need a 40,000-strong security force creating a Ring of Steel to protect the venues from terrorists, missile defense systems around the stadiums, or multi-national military ships stationed offshore. What’s more back then, Olympic building expenses did not exceed $50 billion- And the Winter Games were staged in a northern town with icicles and snowdrifts rather than a major city with a subtropical climate and palm palms.

Lillehammer, Norway hosted the Winter Olympics once upon a time. The 1994 Winter Olympics captivated our attention with a gripping figure skating soap opera, then our hearts and imaginations with a virtual narrative of human achievement that made us all feel quicker, higher, and stronger. The Lillehammer Games stacked narrative after tale that was so magnificent, motivating, and touching that it deserved Disney animation and music. So all in all this is one of the most memorable Winter Olympics of all time. Maybe that time online sportsbooks in the US, weren’t really as popular as nowdays. Good thing that right now you can even bet on the outcome of the Olympics while sitting in your living room on bet365 Sportsbook. 

2. The Lake Placid Winter Olympics (1980)

Next up we have an Olympic Games that is not very outstanding in general, but it’s very important. Why? Because it’s one of the most memorable winnings of the US. It’s one of the greatest matches in American sports, if not all of American sports history. To put it another way, it’s still a huge issue nearly 42 years later. Consider this for someone who is too young to know, hasn’t watched the movie or documentary, or hasn’t read about it: The finest professional hockey team in the world at the time, the Soviet “Big Red Machine,” was the opponent of the US team.

And they were destroyed by a US squad of amateurs, primarily college guys no one had ever heard of. So if you look back at this game, it was a huge thing. This is why we mention the 1980’s Olympics on the list of the most epic Winter Olympic Games of all time. On the other hand this miracle pf the US hockey team wasn’t the only epic moment of the Lake Placid Olympic Games. We can’t forget to mention Eric Heiden and his amazing results.

Decades before fellow American Michael Phelps earned 8 golds at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, speed skater Eric Heiden set a new world record. Only by winning five gold medals at the 1980 Lake Placid Games. Heiden earned the moniker “Man of Gold” after winning the 500 meters, 1000 meters, 1500 meters, 5000 meters. And finally the 10000 meters, in which he achieved a world record time of 6.2 seconds.Despite his success. Heiden stayed out of the spotlight, opting to leave speed skating on top to pursue a career in professional cycling before returning to school for medicine. He served as the team physician for the United States of America Speed Skating team in the past three Olympics, among other professional endeavors.

Calgary Winter Olympics (1988) – “The Battle of the Brians” and “The Battle of the Carmens”

In the Olympic Games, we can always see beautiful and outstanding moments. On the other hand a few times we can really see moments that are extraordinary. We could see one of those at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988. And why? It’s one of the biggest competitions in figure skating between men. Brian Orser of Canada was on one side. Brian Boitano of the United States was pitted against him. They’d met in no fewer than ten big tournaments before to Calgary, so they were no strangers to going head to head.

Orser had won seven of them, but Boitano’s three triumphs meant nothing could be taken for granted, not least since the Canadian could count on the home crowd’s ardent backing. Boitano got off to a great start, finishing second in the compulsory skate behind Aleksandr Fadeyev of the USSR but ahead of the other Brian. In the short program, Orser narrowly edged Boitano for first place, as the two competitors placed first and second. It was evident that the free program, which received half of the total points, would be the deciding factor. The Olympic championship would very definitely go to whoever won the free skate. 

What makes the Calgary Winter Olympics more epis is “The Battle of the Carmens”. So in one Olympics we had to see two very exciting skate competitions. “The Battle of the Carmens” is the formal name of the skate rivalry between East German Katarina Witt and American Debi Thomas. The competition is called for the fact that in their long programs they had the same music choice. Both Witt and Thomas chose to skate to the music of Bizet’s opera Carmen. Both skaters had done exceptionally well in the 1987 World Figure Skating Championships. Therefore the battle for Olympic gold in 1988 was supposed to be a confrontation between them. Although “The Battle of the Carmens”, unlike the Battle of the Brians, did not end with the competitors finishing 1-2. So the Calgary Olympics is really one of the most epic Winter Olympic Games ever.

Squaw Valley (1960) is One of the Most Epic Winter Olympic Games Ever 

When it comes to the most epic Winter Olympic Games ever we have to talk about Sqaw Valley. When the US hockey team won at The Lake Placid Olympics it was a huge thing. What most of us forget is that it wasn’t their first victory over the Russian hockey team. When the Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament began in Squaw Valley in 1960, nobody expected the local team  to win.

The USSR, the defending champions who had won the championship in their Olympic debut in 1956 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, were one of four favorites for the title. Sweden, which had beaten the Soviet Union to the global championship in 1957; Canada, which had taken world gold from the Soviet Union in 1958 and 1959; and Czechoslovakia, which had been second and third at the Worlds the previous three years, were the others.

The United States’ gold-medal-winning campaign in general would eventually become known as the “Forgotten Miracle”. Since it took place 20 years before the much-publicized “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid in 1980. Robert Cleary, the champions’ best scorer with 14 goals, retired after Squaw Valley 1960, declining the chance to play pro ice hockey. 

Click here to visit the bet365 Sportsbook