Episode 631
1956 Winter Olympics
Sat, 2019-Jan-26 00:59 UTC
Length - 2:39
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Saturday, 26 January 2019 is 1956 Winter Olympics.
The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VII Olympic Winter Games (French: Les VIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) (Italian: VII Giochi olimpici invernali), was a multi-sport event celebrated 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 impact the 1956 Winter Games as at the Summer Games in Melbourne, Australia, where the Soviet response to the Hungarian Uprising and the Suez War caused many nations to boycott the Games. The Cortina Olympics were the first Winter Olympics televised to a multi-national audience. These were the first Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Avery Brundage.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:59 UTC on Saturday, 26 January 2019.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Winter_Olympics.
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This has been Joanna. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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