Leading the group of top male skiers in the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is Marcel Hirscher, a record-holder with eight Overall Crystal Globes. Ingemar Stenmark held the record for the greatest number of 86 World Cup wins. Marco Odermatt, Alexis Pinturault, along with Aleksander Aadmot Kilde and Hirscher, round out the group of active skiers in this elite selection.

In the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games, Janica Kostelic was to become the first woman to win four alpine skiing medals at the same Games, and her three golds were also an unprecedented achievement in the sport.

Katja Seizinger led the individual medal table in Nagano 1998, with two gold medals and a bronze, while Hermann Maier was the most successful male skier, with two gold medals.

The Games were the first to be held in a different year from the Summer Olympics, the first and only one to be held two years after the previous Winter Games, and the most recent to be held in a small town. The Games were the second Winter Games hosted in Norway, after the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo.