Figure Skating at the 1998 Winter Games: Previous Winter Games ▪ Next Winter Games
Host City: Nagano, Japan
Venue(s): White Ring, Nagano
Date Started: February 12, 1998
Date Finished: February 14, 1998
Format: Skaters were ranked on Ordinal Placement, based on judges' points, with final placement for each section determined by Majority Placements. The tiebreaker for the Short Program was the Required Elements score, while the tiebreaker for the Free Skating was the Technical Merit score. Thus, if a skater was ranked first by a majority of the judges, that skater was placed first overall for that section. Ties were broken by a Subsequent Majority rule, i.e., if the skaters were ranked for the same position by the same number of judges, Majority Placement for the next higher position for each skater determined who was ranked higher. Final placement was determined by factored placements. The tiebreakers were then 1) Number of Majority Placements, 2) Total Ordinals of Majority, 3) Total Ordinals. The placement for the the Short Program was factored by 0.5 (33.3%), and the placement for Free Skating was factored by 1.0 (66.7%). The sums of the factored placements were then used to determine final placement, with the Free Skating being the tiebreaker.
| Gold: | Ilya Kulik |
| Silver: | Elvis Stojko |
| Bronze: | Philippe Candeloro |
Since Lillehammer, Elvis Stojko (CAN), silver medalist in 1994, had established himself as the best skater in the world, winning the 1994-9 and 1997 World Championships. Todd Eldredge (USA) had won the Worlds in 1996, narrowly defeating Iliya Kulik (RUS). Kulik had won the 1995 European Championships, but early in the 1997-98 season he had been the top skater, defeating Stojko several times. In Nagano, Kulik was unstoppable. He won the short program and was voted first by all nine judges in the free skate. Stojko repeated his silver medal performances from Lillehammer, while the bronze went to Philippe Candeloro (FRA), who narrowly edged out Eldredge. Stojko’s effort was valiant, as he competed with a groin injury, was in obvious discomfort during the competition, and was take to hospital after the event ended. Candeloro had been the crowd favorite, appearing in a costume designed after d’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers.
| Rank | Athlete | Age | Team | NOC | Medal | CFFP | TFP | FSFP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ilya Kulik | 20 | Russia | RUS | Gold | 0.5 | 1.5 | 1.0 | |
| 2 | Elvis Stojko | 25 | Canada | CAN | Silver | 1.0 | 4.0 | 3.0 | |
| 3 | Philippe Candeloro | 25 | France | FRA | Bronze | 2.5 | 4.5 | 2.0 | |
| 4 | Todd Eldredge | 26 | United States | USA | 1.5 | 5.5 | 4.0 | ||
| 5 | Aleksey Yagudin | 17 | Russia | RUS | 2.0 | 7.0 | 5.0 | ||
| 6 | Steven Cousins | 25 | Great Britain | GBR | 3.0 | 10.0 | 7.0 | ||
| 7 | Michael Weiss | 21 | United States | USA | 5.5 | 11.5 | 6.0 | ||
| 8 | Guo Zhengxin | 18 | China | CHN | 5.0 | 14.0 | 9.0 | ||
| 9 | Michael Tyllesen | 24 | Denmark | DEN | 4.5 | 15.5 | 11.0 | ||
| 10 | V'iacheslav Zahorodniuk | 25 | Ukraine | UKR | 8.0 | 16.0 | 8.0 | ||
| 11 | Ivan Dinev | 19 | Bulgaria | BUL | 3.5 | 17.5 | 14.0 | ||
| 12 | Jeff Langdon | 22 | Canada | CAN | 8.5 | 18.5 | 10.0 | ||
| 13 | Szabolcs Vidrai | 20 | Hungary | HUN | 6.0 | 19.0 | 13.0 | ||
| 14 | Dmytro Dmytrenko | 24 | Ukraine | UKR | 4.0 | 20.0 | 16.0 | ||
| 15 | Takeshi Honda | 16 | Japan | JPN | 9.0 | 21.0 | 12.0 | ||
| 16 | Igor Pashkevich | 26 | Azerbaijan | AZE | 6.5 | 21.5 | 15.0 | ||
| 17 | Yamato Tamura | 18 | Japan | JPN | 7.5 | 24.5 | 17.0 | ||
| 18 | Michael Shmerkin | 28 | Israel | ISR | 7.0 | 25.0 | 18.0 | ||
| 19 | Roman Skornyakov | 21 | Uzbekistan | UZB | 10.0 | 29.0 | 19.0 | ||
| 20 | Margus Hernits | 21 | Estonia | EST | 9.5 | 29.5 | 20.0 | ||
| 21 | Cornel Gheorghe | 26 | Romania | ROU | 10.5 | 31.5 | 21.0 | ||
| 22 | Patrick Meier | 21 | Switzerland | SUI | 11.0 | 33.0 | 22.0 | ||
| 23 | Gilberto Viadana | 24 | Italy | ITA | 12.0 | 35.0 | 23.0 | ||
| 24 | Lee Kyu-Hyun | 17 | South Korea | KOR | 11.5 | 35.5 | 24.0 | ||
| 25 r1/2 | Anthony Liu | 23 | Australia | AUS | 12.5 | ||||
| 26 r1/2 | Róbert Kažimír | 19 | Slovakia | SVK | 13.0 | ||||
| 27 r1/2 | David Liu | 32 | Chinese Taipei | TPE | 13.5 | ||||
| 28 r1/2 | Yury Litvinov | 19 | Kazakhstan | KAZ | 14.0 | ||||
| 29 r1/2 | Patrick Schmit | 23 | Luxembourg | LUX | 14.5 |