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.

Pernilla Wiberg is one of the most successful alpine ski racers of the 1990s having won 2 Olympic and 4 Championships gold medals