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 All editions of
Jeux Sans Frontières 1998 were transmitted from Trento in
Italy. Seven teams participated during this year, with only Slovenia from the 1997
line-up of countries failing to return. The 1998 series saw the first
French victory since 1992, with La Clusaz winning the fourth heat. It was to
be the last French victory in JSF. The year, however, belonged to Hungary, who
won three editions including the International Final.
The
arena at the Palazzo delle Albere included three pools. The biggest was filled
with 800,000 litres of water, the second with 360,000 litres and the smallest
with 16,800 litres. Each edition of the 1998 Jeux Sans Frontières series as transmitted
by RAI Uno began with a short promotional spot for the soon-to-be-introduced Euro currency, which was here dubbed 'the coin without
frontiers'. These sequences were different each week and featured Italian presenters Mauro Serio and Flavia
Fortunato. They were based on famous characters from fiction and actuality and
upon films including Casablanca and Mary Poppins.
The
Italian editions also featured sequences halfway through the programme which
showed local volunteers testing out and practicing on the games, before the
teams tried them for real. At the conclusion of each of these sequences,
Italian presenters Mauro Serio and Flavia Fortunato distributed Italian
Lottery tickets to the volunteers as a show of gratitude.
In
Spain, a junior version of Grand Prix del Verano entitled Peque Prix,
debuted alongside its parent programme. It was contested by children
representing different schools (rather than towns) and ran for six seasons
between 1998 and 2000, comprising 78 episodes in total. The programme format
followed the main Grand Prix programme's for the most part, with small
differences. They even re-used some of the games from the main show.
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