RINGO was not a newcomer to Nagano. In Japanese, ringo means 'apple', the fruit, which is one of the top agricultural products of Nagano.

The RINGO game cards were distributed to the athletes at "Staging" in Calgary at the end of January, just before the Canadian team left for Nagano. Other events in Calgary included a gala dinner and audio/visual presentation for the Olympic athletes. An exhibition ice-hockey game was played at the Saddledome between the women's teams from the U.S.A. and Canada.

There were two weekly RINGO contests starting on February 8th and on February 15th. Since this was during the beginning of the age of the internet, the RINGO website was developed to publish the daily RINGO clues as well as the team results in the events. This was the first time that only Canadian Olympians were featured for both contests.

A bronze medalist in the women's 3,000 metre relay, and gold medalist in the 500 metre short track speed skating events, Annie Perreault was also a RINGO winner! at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.