| Date | 21 February 1998 | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Olympic | |
| Location | Mt. Yakebitai, Shiga Kogen, Yamanouchi | |
| Participants | 65 from 31 countries | |
| Format | Two runs, total time determined placement. | |
| Details | Gates: 65 Length: ? Start Altitude: 1890 m Vertical Drop: 220 m | |
The men’s slalom was definitely affected by the weather as the two runs were conducted during a snowstorm, and midway thru the first run, a mild earthquake (Richter scale of 5.0) struck Mt. Yakebitai. The event came down to a virtual team battle between the Austrians and Norwegians. Austrian Thomas Sykora had led the 1997 World Cup and was leading in the 1997-98 season as well, and came from an athletic family, his mother, Liesel Prokop, having won an Olympic silver medal in athletics in the 1968 pentathlon. Sykora led on the first run, followed by Norwegians Hans Petter Buraas and Ole Kristian Furuseth. In fourth was Thomas Stangassinger of Austria, the defending champion, followed by two more sons of Norway, Tom Stiansen and Finn Christian Jagge. The second run was dominated by Buraas who moved up to win the gold medal, his run 0.69 seconds ahead of another Austrian Christian Mayer, who had only been equal eighth on the first run, and could move up only to fifth place overall. Sykora and Stangassinger both skied poorly on the second run, finishing in a tie for 12th, and would drop down. Sykora hung on to win a bronze medal, while Stangassinger dropped to sixth. Furuseth placed fourth on the second run to win the silver medal. In all, the first seven places were taken by Austrians and Norwegians, the first finisher from another country was Joël Chenal of France, in eighth.
| Pos | Competitor | NOC | Time | Run #1 | Run #2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hans Petter Buraas |  NOR | 1:49.31 | 55.28 (2) | 54.03 (1) | Gold | ||
| 2 | Ole Kristian Furuseth | NOR | 1:50.64 | 55.53 (3) | 55.11 (4) | Silver | ||
| 3 | Thomas Sykora |  AUT | 1:50.68 | 55.06 (1) | 55.62 (=12) | Bronze | ||
| 4 | Tom Stiansen | NOR | 1:50.90 | 55.70 (5) | 55.20 (5) | |||
| 5 | Christian Mayer | AUT | 1:51.09 | 56.37 (=8) | 54.72 (2) | |||
| 6 | Thomas Stangassinger | AUT | 1:51.25 | 55.63 (4) | 55.62 (=12) | |||
| 7 | Finn Christian Jagge | NOR | 1:51.39 | 56.06 (6) | 55.33 (7) | |||
| 8 | Joël Chenal |  FRA | 1:51.51 | 56.68 (14) | 54.83 (3) | |||
| 9 | Kalle Palander |  FIN | 1:51.81 | 56.37 (=8) | 55.44 (10) | |||
| 10 | Pierrick Bourgeat | FRA | 1:51.82 | 56.28 (7) | 55.54 (11) | |||
| 11 | Matteo Nana |  ITA | 1:51.96 | 56.59 (12) | 55.37 (9) | |||
| 12 | Didier Plaschy |  SUI | 1:52.03 | 56.67 (13) | 55.36 (8) | |||
| 13 | Kiminobu Kimura |  JPN | 1:52.15 | 56.53 (10) | 55.62 (=12) | |||
| 14 | Sébastien Amiez | FRA | 1:52.19 | 56.96 (16) | 55.23 (6) | |||
| 15 | Matt Grosjean |  USA | 1:52.56 | 56.58 (11) | 55.98 (16) | |||
| 16 | Angelo Weiss | ITA | 1:52.80 | 56.87 (15) | 55.93 (15) | |||
| 17 | Matjaž Vrhovnik |  SLO | 1:54.65 | 57.36 (20) | 57.29 (18) | |||
| 18 | Paul Accola | SUI | 1:54.91 | 57.56 (23) | 57.35 (19) | |||
| 19 | Michael von Grünigen | SUI | 1:54.96 | 57.33 (19) | 57.63 (21) | |||
| 20 | Gaku Hirasawa | JPN | 1:55.24 | 57.74 (24) | 57.50 (20) | |||
| 21 | Takuya Ishioka | JPN | 1:55.69 | 58.85 (28) | 56.84 (17) | |||
| 22 | Stefan Georgiev |  BUL | 1:56.12 | 57.95 (27) | 58.17 (23) | |||
| 23 | Heo Seung-Uk |  KOR | 1:58.01 | 59.94 (30) | 58.07 (22) | |||
| 24 | Gabriel Hottegindre |  URU | 2:03.27 | 1:01.98 (31) | 1:01.29 (24) | |||
| 25 | Sveinn Brynjólfsson |  ISL | 2:06.18 | 1:03.52 (32) | 1:02.66 (25) | |||
| 26 | Alex Heath |  RSA | 2:14.44 | 1:06.82 (33) | 1:07.62 (27) | |||
| 27 | Arsen Harutyunyan |  ARM | 2:15.11 | 1:07.51 (34) | 1:07.60 (26) | |||
| 28 | Komil Urunbayev |  UZB | 2:18.85 | 1:09.55 (35) | 1:09.30 (28) | |||
| 29 | Arif Alaftargil |  TUR | 2:25.09 | 1:12.36 (36) | 1:12.73 (29) | |||
| 30 | Hassan Shemshaki |  IRI | 2:26.99 | 1:13.59 (38) | 1:13.40 (30) | |||
| 31 | William Schenker |  PUR | 2:28.88 | 1:12.95 (37) | 1:15.93 (31) | |||
| Andrzej Bachleda-Curuś |  POL | – | 57.45 (21) | – ( | ||||
| Bode Miller | USA | – | 57.52 (22) | – ( | ||||
| Marcel Maxa |  CZE | – | 57.81 (25) | – ( | ||||
| Thomas Lodler |  CRO | – | 57.91 (26) | – ( | ||||
| Petar Dichev | BUL | – | 59.62 (29) | – ( | ||||
| Alberto Tomba | ITA | – | 57.00 (17) | – ( | ||||
| Fabrizio Tescari | ITA | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Andrej Miklavc | SLO | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Jure Košir | SLO | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Kristinn Björnsson | ISL | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Martin Hansson |  SWE | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Mario Reiter | AUT | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Markus Eberle |  GER | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Thomas Grandi |  CAN | – | – ( | – | ||||
| François Simond | FRA | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Marco Casanova | SUI | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Mika Marila | FIN | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Chip Knight | USA | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Andy LeRoy | USA | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Kentaro Minagawa | JPN | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Haukur Arnórsson | ISL | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Gerard Escoda |  AND | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Arnór Gunnarsson | ISL | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Lyubomir Popov | BUL | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Sami Uotila | FIN | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Víctor Gómez | AND | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Byeon Jong-Mun | KOR | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Angel Pumpalov | BUL | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Arne Hardenberg |  DEN | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Vasilios Dimitriadis |  GRE | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Levan Abramishvili |  GEO | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Andreas Vasili |  CYP | – | – ( | – | ||||
| Alain Baxter |  GBR | – | [57.83] ( | – | ||||
| Drago Grubelnik | SLO | – | 57.06 (18) | – ( | ||||
| Alois Vogl | GER | – | – ( | – |
