The , the seventh Paralympic Winter Games, were held alongside the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, from 5 to 14 March 1998. They were the first Paralympic Winter Games to be held in Asia.
Host city selection
In 1932, Japan won the rights to host the 1940 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. At that time, organizers of the Summer Olympics had priority in choosing the venue for the Winter Olympics the same year. Several Japanese cities, including Nagano, prepared a bid. Sapporo was chosen; however, the games never took place because of World War II. In 1961, Nagano declared its intention to host the 1968 Winter Olympics but lost to Sapporo, the winning Japanese bid, who lost to Grenoble, France, and Sapporo eventually won the right to host the 1972 Winter Olympics.
Japanese private sector organizations, in 1983, began publicly discussing a possible bid. Two years later, in 1985, the Nagano Prefectural Assembly, decided to begin the process to bid, for its third time, for a Winter Olympics. The bid committee was established in July 1986, they submitted their bid to the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) in November of the same year. Other Japanese cities that were bidding were Asahikawa, Yamagata, and Morioka. 1 June 1988, the JOC selected Nagano in the first round of national voting, receiving 34 of 45 votes. In 1989, the bid committee was reorganized, with the Japanese Prime Minister as head of the committee. The number of committee members was 511.
On 12 February 1990, the bid delegation presented its candidature at the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne before Juan Antonio Samaranch. Other candidate cities for the 1998 Olympics were Aosta, Italy; Jaca, Spain; Östersund, Sweden; Salt Lake City, United States, and Sochi, Soviet Union. The host city selection was held in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on 15 June 1991, at the 97th IOC session. After the first round of voting, Nagano led, with Aosta and Salt Lake City tied for last. Aosta was eliminated in a run-off against Salt Lake City. After the second round of voting, Nagano led with Salt Lake City in second, and Jaca was eliminated. Following round 3, Nagano continued to lead, with Salt Lake City in second, and Östersund was eliminated. Finally, Nagano prevailed over Salt Lake City by just 4 votes in the fifth round of voting, becoming the third Japanese city to host the games after Tokyo in 1964 Summer Olympics and Sapporo in 1972. Nagano, at 36°N, is the southernmost city in the Northern Hemisphere to host the Winter Olympics (1960 Winter Olympics host Squaw Valley, California is 39°N). In June 1995, Salt Lake was chosen as the host of the following 2002 Winter Olympics.
Following a 2002 Winter Olympic bid scandal that occurred in the summer of 2000, Atlanta, host of the 1996 Summer Olympics, Nagano, and Sydney, host of the 2000 Summer Olympics, were suspected of similar improprieties in bidding practices. Although nothing illegal was ever done, gifts to IOC members were considered morally dubious. The Nagano Olympic bid committee spent approximately $14 million to entertain the 62 International Olympic Committee members and many of their companions. The precise figures are unknown since Nagano, after the IOC asked that the entertainment expenditures not be made public, destroyed the financial records, according to bid member Junichi Yamaguchi.
+ 1998 Winter Olympics bidding results City Country Round 1 Run-Off 2 3 4Nagano 21 — 30 36 46Salt Lake City 15 59 27 29 42Östersund 18 — 25 23 —Jaca 19 — 5 — —Aosta 15 29 — — —
Paralympic selection
When the city of Nagano was selected to host the 1998 Winter Olympic Games on June 15, 1991, new demands arose from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and other stakeholders from around the world. Despite having been operational for only two years, the IPC had already shown a strong institutional interest regarding the realization of the 1998 Winter Paralympic Games in Nagano. The committee recognized this as the perfect opportunity to expand adapted winter sports to Asia, strategically compelling the Japanese government to invest millions of yen in accessibility infrastructure across the country.This proactivity from the newly operational IPC met a highly favorable response in Japan, as international planners and local authorities recognized a profound emotional legacy and infrastructural commitment to adaptive sports in the country. This historical bond was deeply linked to the 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, which served as a watershed milestone for the global movement. As the first Paralympic Games ever held in Asia, the 1964 event marked the first time the term "Paralympics" gained widespread official traction and set a permanent benchmark for national mobilization. Furthermore, the success of the Tokyo Games had deeply influenced Japan's welfare policies and radically transformed public perception of disability. By tapping into this potent institutional memory, Nagano promoters and domestic planners successfully utilized this emotional capital as a powerful internal catalyst. This strategy allowed them to garner immediate, unanimous political backing from the municipal and prefectural assemblies, effectively transforming a complex logistical and financial challenge into a matter of national prestige, continuity, and an opportunity to replicate Tokyo's summer triumph within a winter sports framework on the continent.The goal was to ensure that the municipality also hosted the event that, at the time, was popularly referred to as "the other Olympics," scheduled for the same year.On November 8, 1991, the IPC formalized this mutual interest by sending an official document inviting Nagano to host the 7th edition of the Winter Paralympic Games. Rather than a routine bureaucratic step, this pro-active invitation allowed the IPC to address serious operational concerns observed during the planning of Tignes-Albertville 1992. In the French edition, the Paralympic events are facing severe geographical isolation from the main Olympic hubs, alongside friction regarding calendar shifts and insufficient regional accessibility. To prevent these redundancies, the IPC's invitation to Nagano proposed an integrated hosting blueprint. The international body sought early commitments from Japanese planners to ensure the shared use of premier sports venues, the enforcement of universal design in the Paralympic Village, and the establishment of a centralized local POC, thereby establishing a new global benchmark for administrative cooperation.In direct response to the IPC's strategic invitation, the Bid Committee for the 1998 Winter Paralympics was officially launched on July 30, 1992. This administrative milestone established a dedicated promotion framework to translate the initial political enthusiasm into concrete operational planning. The newly formed Promotion Council was chaired by the president of the Japan Sports Association for the Disabled (later known as the Japan Sports Association for the Physically Disabled) and was structured with a focused core of thirteen committee members and two observers. To ensure seamless alignment with municipal infrastructure and social policies, the head of the welfare department from Nagano City was appointed to a leadership role within the council, taking direct charge of promoting the bid project.
This strategic selection of a welfare specialist underscored the local government's commitment to prioritizing accessibility and universal design from the very inception of the paralympic campaign, laying the bureaucratic groundwork required for the upcoming official assemblies.Structurally, this Promotion Council operated as a highly specialized coalition designed to bridge national sports expertise with municipal executive power. By placing the president of the Japan Sports Association for the Disabled at the helm, the committee secured a direct institutional link to adaptive sports governance and technical expertise. The core deliberative body—composed of thirteen committee members and two observers—was strategically streamlined to accelerate corporate decision-making and cross-departmental budgeting. Crucially, the appointment of Nagano City's head of the welfare department to lead the operational bid project shifted the campaign's focus from mere athletic promotion to comprehensive social infrastructure. This internal organization allowed the council to leverage municipal welfare resources and urban planning authority, ensuring that the rigorous integration and barrier-free standards demanded by the IPC were embedded into the city's legislative agenda from day one.
On June 25, 1993, the Nagano City Council transitioned the campaign from an administrative proposal to an official state-backed initiative by passing a formal resolution to host the Winter Paralympic Games. This legislative milestone triggered immediate political alignment across the region, as the Nagano Prefectural Assembly and relevant neighboring town and village assemblies passed matching resolutions shortly thereafter. By securing unanimous local governance backing, the Nagano Winter Paralympic Games Promotion Council finalized its official application and submitted it to the IPC on July 23 of the same year. This unified domestic front proved decisive on September 10, 1993, at the 4th IPC General Assembly held in Berlin, Germany, where Nagano was officially selected as the host city for the 1998 Winter Paralympic Games. However, despite the international acclamation, the local organizers still faced a six-month bureaucratic interim before the Host City Contract could be signed in 7 March,1994.
Following the international selection in Berlin, the transition from a bidding campaign to an executive structure was formalized on November 16, 1993, with the official establishment of the Nagano Winter Paralympic Games Organizing Committee (NAPOC). This milestone marked the beginning of full-scale operational and logistic activities. To ensure immediate synergy between the municipal government and the newly formed organizing committee, Nagano City launched the Nagano City Olympic and Paralympic Liaison and Coordination Committee (NCOPLCC) on November 30, 1993. Chaired by the Mayor Tasuku Tsukada and composed of the heads of related municipal departments, this coordination body was structured into nine specialized operational branches, including a dedicated public relations division. This joint administrative framework allowed the local government to synchronize city resources, infrastructure modifications, and public communication strategies directly with NAPOC's executive roadmap from the very outset.The year 1994 served as the definitive operational turning point for the Japanese organizers.
Flag handover and early infrastructure assessments (1994–1995)