Scandinavia and Finland, the home of snow and ice sports, had never had the opportunity to host the Winter Games. Only Norway offers sufficient slopes for downhill skiing. It was only right, however, that the Games should be awarded to Norway and more specifically to Oslo, even if it would have been necessary to find downhill tracks much further north. For once, the Olympic flame comes from the cold; the organisers, without consulting the reluctant I.O.C., decided that it would be lit in Morgedal, the homeland of the first great Norwegian skier Nordheim.