Sixty-sixth Winter Games

The terrestrial portion of the sixty-sixth Winter Olympic Games were held in Klagenfurt, Austria a part of United Europe. Additional events, such as the five-kilometer ski jump were held on Mimas, a moon of Saturn.

The opening ceremonies were replicated on Mimas prior to competition beginning, starting with a symbolic lighting of the Olympic flame. Since Mimas has no atmosphere, the flaming torch the runner carried and the burning bronze caldron she "ignited" were holographic displays. This was followed by the procession of athletes entering the plain at the foot of Arthur's central peak.

They were led by the two men and two women of the Greek contingent in their blue and white spacesuits. Although Greece had been a member of United Europe for over a hundred and fifty years, they continued to compete separately to keep their place of honor as the homeland of the Olympic ideal. Since United Europe was hosting, the other national groups entered in French alphabetical order. This put the United States or Etats-Unis team near the front rather than the back if you could call one man and one woman a team. They were preceded by the Chinese Empire and followed by Eastern Europe, the Anzac Federation, Japan, and Luna. Also in the procession were the Arab World, Moscow and Siberia.

The US was not the only small national team. The Swiss, too, had only a two member team. They had traveled to Mimas onboard the United Europe space ship. Bringing up the rear was the small Zaire team. The difficulty was the expensiveness of space travel. The fare was fifteen hundred ounces of gold for one person, Earth to Saturn so poorer countries could not send many athletes.

Security was tight since the Arabs had received threats from Israeli, Turkish and Armenian nationalists. Nevertheless, the Second Irgun appeared to successfully murder three athletes during the first day of the five-kilometer ski jump competition.