The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VII Olympic Winter Games ( or ) and commonly known as Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 (), were a multi-sport event held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from 26 January to 5 February 1956.

Cortina, which had originally been awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, beat out Montreal, Colorado Springs and Lake Placid for the right to host the 1956 Games. The Cortina Games were unique in that many of the venues were within walking distance of each other. The organising committee received financial support from the Italian government for infrastructure improvements, but the rest of the costs for the Games had to be privately financed. Consequently, the organising committee was the first to rely heavily on corporate sponsorship for funding.

Thirty-two nations—the largest number of countries participating in the Winter Olympics until then—competed in the four sports and twenty-four events. Austrian Toni Sailer became the first person to sweep all three alpine skiing events in a single Olympics. The figure skating competition was held outdoors for the last time at these Games. Logistically, the only problem encountered was a lack of snow at the alpine skiing events. To remedy this, the Italian army transported large amounts of snow to ensure the courses were adequately covered.

Politics did not affect the 1956 Winter Games – unlike the Summer Games in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia later in the year which many nations boycotted after the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution, and the Suez War. The Cortina Olympics were the first Winter Olympics televised to a multi-national audience. Cortina co-hosted the 2026 Winter Olympics with Milan, Lombardy, 70 years after the 1956 Games.

Host city selection Cortina d'Ampezzo is a ski resort village situated in the Dolomite Alps in the north-eastern corner of Italy.Robertson (1903), pp. 172–173. In 1956, it had a population of 6,500 people. Count Alberto Bonacossa, an accomplished alpine skier, figure skater and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1925, spearheaded the effort to bring the Olympic Games to Cortina d'Ampezzo.Findling and Pelle (1996), p. 258. He persuaded the city council of Cortina to bid for the 1944 Games. During the 38th IOC Congress held in London in 1939, Cortina d'Ampezzo was awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, but the Games were canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.Findling and Pelle (1996), pp. 246–247.

In 1946 the Italian Winter Sports Federation convened in Milan and decided to support a new attempt from Cortina to host the Winter Games. A delegation, led by Count Bonacossa, presented Cortina's bid to host the 1952 Winter Olympics at the 40th IOC Session in Stockholm, Sweden. They were backed by the city's council and the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI, Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano). A rival bid from Oslo, Norway, soundly defeated Cortina. Count Bonacossa's and CONI prepared a third bid, this time for the 1956 Winter Games. The host city selection took place in Rome, during the 43rd IOC Session. On 28 April 1949, Cortina d'Ampezzo was selected with 75% of the votes, over bids from Montreal, Colorado Springs and Lake Placid. Unfortunately, Bonacossa died on 30 January 1953, three years before he could witness Cortina host the Games.Findling & Pelle (1996), p. 259.

+ 1956 Winter Olympics bidding result City CountryRound 1Cortina d'Ampezzo 31Montreal 7Colorado Springs 2Lake Placid1

Participating nations A total of 32 nations sent athletes to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Along with the Soviet Union, Bolivia and Pahlavi Iran competed at the Winter Games for the first time, making Bolivia the first completely tropical nation to participate in a Winter Olympics. South Korea, Liechtenstein and Turkey returned after having missed the 1952 Winter Olympics, while Argentina, Denmark, New Zealand and Portugal did not compete at these Games,Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956), pp. 50–69 after having participated in the previous edition. Athletes from West Germany (FRG) and East Germany (GDR) competed together as the United Team of Germany, an arrangement that would continue for the following two Olympiads.

Below is the list of participating nations, with the number of competitors indicated in brackets:

Participating National Olympic Committees (host)

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees IOC Letter Code Country Athletes USA 67 ITA 65 EUA 63 AUT 60 SVI 59 SVE 58 URS 53 POL 51 NOR 45 CSL 41 GRB 41 CAN 37 FRA 32 FIN 31 ROM 19 JUG 17 GIA 10 SPA 9 AUS 8 ISL 8 LIC 8 OLA 8 BUL 7 TUR 6 BEL 4 CIL 4 IRN 4 COR 4 GRE 3 LIB 3 UNG 2 BOL 1 Total 821

Medal count

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1956 Winter Olympics:

Two gold medals were awarded when Soviet skaters tied for first in the 1,500 metre speed skating competition.

Podium sweeps +DateSportEventNOCGoldSilverBronze29 JanuaryAlpine skiing Men's giant slalomToni SailerAndreas MoltererWalter Schuster1 FebruaryFigure skating Men's singlesHayes Alan JenkinsRonald RobertsonDavid Jenkins

Organization

The 1956 Winter Olympics was organised by a committee composed of members of the Italian National Olympic Committee and the Italian government. Observers were sent to the Oslo Games in 1952 to collect information regarding the sports programme, infrastructure, and accommodation requirements.Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956), pp. 117–118 The intelligence gathered there indicated that Cortina's facilities were not up to Olympic standards. The town did not have an ice stadium, or a speed skating rink; the alpine ski runs, ski jump and bobsleigh run were in poor condition. Cortina was a small village, and its infrastructure would be overwhelmed by the crowds expected for the Games. To accommodate the influx of people, new roads and rail lines had to be built, and the city's power grid and telephone lines expanded. Enhancements also had to be made to sewer and water capacity.Findling and Pelle (1996), p. 259–260 The Italian government supplied Italian lira 460 million for infrastructure improvements. The Italian Olympic Committee was responsible for funding the rest of the costs of hosting the Games. They did this by setting aside monies from their own budget, ticket sales, and even culling funds from local football betting pools.Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956), p. 156. The organising committee also took the unprecedented step of selling corporate sponsorship. For example, Fiat was designated the official car of the 1956 Winter Olympics, and Olivetti supplied typewriters for the 400 journalists attending the Games.Judd (2008), p. 27.

Politics The Cold War began after the allied victory in World War II. Until 1952, many of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe had participated in Worker's Olympics or Spartakiads. The Soviet Union emerged from international isolation by eschewing the Spartakiad and participating in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki; they made their Winter Olympics debut at the Cortina Games. Soviet general secretary Nikita Khrushchev's aim was to use international sports competitions, such as the Olympics, to demonstrate the superiority of communism, strengthen political ties with other communist countries, and project the Soviet Union as a peace-loving nation actively engaged in the world.Keys (2006), p. 295. The Soviets' participation at the Olympics raised the level of competition as they won the most medals and more gold medals than any other nation.Findling and Pelle (1996), p. 261 Soviet Olympic team was also notorious for skirting the edge of amateur rules. All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over the United States and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs. The Cortina Games were held before the Hungarian Revolution and subsequent Soviet invasion, and the Suez War, which occurred in the autumn of 1956; the Winter Games escaped the boycotts that plagued the Melbourne Olympics, which were celebrated in November and December of that year.Findling and Pelle (1996), p. 260.

Television The Cortina Games were the first Winter Olympics to be broadcast to a multi-national audience.Toohey and Veal (2007), p. 148. Television as a mass communication technology was expanding rapidly in the 1950s. In the midst of the Cold War, Europe was a propaganda battlefield as countries relayed television signals across the Iron Curtain.Schwoch (2009), p. 39. By 1956, countries in the Soviet sphere of influence had achieved a technological advantage and were able to broadcast communist television programmes into Finland, the eastern border regions and more isolated geographic areas of West Germany and Austria, where residents had coverage from an East German broadcast with a pro-communist point-of-view.Schwoch (2009), pp. 39–40 Most West Germans watched the 1956 Winter Olympics via Eurovision broadcasts which were relayed all over western Europe including all major West German stations (Eurovision connectivity in 1956) The political ramifications were not the only impact television had on these Olympics. The Cortina Games did not generate revenue from television – the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley were the first to do so – but were an experiment in the feasibility of televising a large multi-sport event.Guttman (1986), p. 135 For the first time at an Olympic Games, the venues were built with television in mind. For example, the grand stand at the cross-country ski venue (Lo Stadio della neve) was built facing south so that the television cameras would not be adversely affected by the rising or setting sun.

Events

Medals were awarded in 24 events contested in 4 sports (8 disciplines). The programme for the 1956 Winter Games saw two new events added to the four sports and twenty-two events from the 1952 Olympics, namely the men's 30 kilometre cross-country ski race and the women's 3x5 kilometre cross-country relay race.

Skating

Skiing

Opening ceremonies The opening ceremonies took place on Thursday, 26 January 1956 in the Olympic Ice Stadium. Temporary seating was added to boost the stadium's capacity to 14,000 people. Athletes representing 32 nations marched in the ceremony and Mr Giovanni Gronchi, President of the Italian Republic, declared the Games open. At this point, speed skater Guido Caroli skated into the stadium with the Olympic flame. While he was entered on a circuit of the Ice Stadium he tripped and fell over a television cable; he regained his feet and lit the cauldron. The Olympic oath was delivered by Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo; this was the first time a female athlete gave the oath at an Olympic Games. Michał Spisak's Olympic Hymn, officially recognised as such at the IOC congress in Paris on 13 June 1955 (declined in 1958 in favor of the Olympic Hymn by Spyridon Samaras), was played for the first time at the Cortina Games.

Bobsleigh