Guide to Lillehammer

A look at Lillehammer, Norway, the central location of the Winter Olympics, Feb. 12-27, 1994:

* LOCATION: 110 miles north of Oslo.

* POPULATION: 23,000, the smallest city, except for Lake Placid, N.Y., (1932, ‘80) to stage the Winter Olympics.

* MOST FAMOUS NATIVE: Thor Bjorkland, inventor of the cheese slicer.

* MOST ENDURING LEGEND: Trolls lurk in the night in the Lillehammer region, which is known as the Troll Park Area. Popularized by tales told by an 18th-Century farmer, Peer Gynt, to his superstitious neighbors, trolls are supernatural creatures variously portrayed as friendly or mischievous dwarfs and sometimes as threatening giants.

* SPORTS TRADITION: The Troll Park Area is one of the most popular regions for winter recreation, particularly Alpine and cross-country skiing, in a country that calls itself “the cradle of skiing.”

Olympic symbols are based on a 4,000-year-old pictograph found carved into a rock on Rodoy, an island off Norway’s Arctic coast. It is believed to be the oldest depiction of man’s participation in skiing. The Olympic torch will be lighted in the fireplace used by the “father of modern skiing,” Sondre Nordheim.

* MONEY ALLOCATED TO THE OLYMPICS: About $2 billion, including $1.05 billion for the organization of the Games and the construction of venues for figure skating, speedskating, hockey, bobsled, luge and ski jumping.

The rest goes toward improvements in regional infrastructure. Events will be held in six towns within 36 miles of Lillehammer. Organizers anticipate $357 million in revenues. The rest will be government financed.

* GOALS: To showcase Norway worldwide as a winter tourist destination and heighten awareness in environmental issues by staging the “greenest” Games ever. Organizers are intent upon leaving the area as quiet and unspoiled as they found it, even persuading one of the primary Olympic sponsors, Coca-Cola, to advertise with carved and painted wooden signs instead of neon, and eliminating “wasteful” fireworks from the opening and closing ceremonies.

Nevertheless, the Games are under attack from environmental groups because of commercial whaling by Norwegian fishermen. Monitor, an umbrella organization for 40 American environmental groups, is calling for a boycott of the Games and is threatening to stain the snow red with the blood of whales.

* OTHER PROBLEMS: Besides a lack of hotel and restaurant facilities to accommodate an unprecedented number of visitors to the area, Lillehammer is experiencing a shortage of manhole covers. Decorated with the Olympic five-ring symbol, they have become a popular item for souvenir hunters. After one serious accident was barely averted, police chief Einar Henriksen issued a warning in Norway’s national newspaper, the Aftenposten, to potential manhole cover thieves.