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  Olympic Games
 
1956 Winter Olympic Games

The 7th Winter Olympics were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from January 26 to February 5, 1956. A total of 821 athletes (134 women, 687 men) from 32 nations participated in a total of 24 events.

Highlights

These games were most notable for the first appearance by a team from the Soviet Union.

These were the first Olympic Games to be televised.

This was the last time at which the figure skating events were held outdoors.

Athletes from East and West Germany competed together as the "United Team of Germany." This combined team also appeared in the 1960 and 1964 Winter Games.

Pavel Kolchin became the first non-Scandinavian to earn a medal in cross-country skiing.

Anton Sailer won all three men's races in Alpine skiing -- the first clean sweep in Olympics history.

In the ski jumping competition, the Finnish team inaugurated a new aerodynamic style, which consisted of holding the arms flat against the body rather than over the head in a diving position.

Events and Winners

event gold medal winner (nation) time/score silver medal winner (nation) time/score bronze medal winner (nation) time/score
ALPINE SKIING      
-men's downhill Toni Sailer (Austria) 2:52.02 Raymond Fellay (Switz) 2:55.07 Anderl Molterer (Austria) 2:56.02
-men's giant slalom Toni Sailer (Austria) 3:00.01 Anderl Molterer (Austria) 3:06.03 Walter Schuster (Austria) 3:07.02
-men's slalom Toni Sailer (Austria) 3:14.07 Chiharu Igaya (Japan) 3:18.07 Stig Sollander (Sweden) 3:20.02
-women's downhill Madeleine Berthod (Switz) 1:40.07 Frieda Dänzer (Switz) 1:45.04 Lucile Wheeler (Canada) 1:45.09
-women's giant slalom Ossi Reichert (Germany) 1:56.05 Josefine Frandl (Austria) 1:57.08 Dorothea Hochleitner (Austria) 1:58.02
-women's slalom Renée Colliard (Switz) 1:52.03 Regina Schöpf (Austria) 1:55.04 Yevgeniya Sidorova (USSR) 1:56.07
BOBSLEIGH      
-two-man Lamberto Dalla Costa and Giacomo Conti (Italy) Eugenio Monti and Renzo Alvera (Italy) Max Angst and Harry Warburton (Switz)
-four-man Franz Kapus, Gottfried Diener, Robert Alt and Heinrich Angst (Switz) Eugenio Monti, Ulrico Girardi, Renzo Alvera and Renato Mocellini (Italy) Arthur Tyler, William Dodge, Charles Butler and James Lamy (US)
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING      
-men's 15km Hallgeir Brenden (Norway) 49:39 Sixten Jernberg (Sweden) 50:14 Pavel Kolchin (USSR) 50:17
-men's 30km Veikko Hakulinen (Finland) 1:44.06 Sixten Jernberg (Sweden) 1:44.30 Pavel Kolchin (USSR) 1:45.45
-men's 50km Sixten Jernberg (Sweden) 2:50.27 Veikko Hakulinen (Finland) 2:51.45 Fyodor Terentyev (USSR) 2:53.32
-men's 4x10km Fyodor Terentyev, Pavel Kolchin, Nikolay Anikin, Vladimir Kuzin (USSR) 2:15.30 August Kiuru, Jorma Kortelainen, Arvo Viitanen, Veikko Hakulinen (Finland) 2:16.31 Lennart Larsson, Gunnar Samuelsson, Per-Erik Larsson, Sixten Jernberg (Sweden) 2:17.42
-women's 10km Lyubov Kozyreva (USSR) 38:11 Radia Yeroshina (USSR) 38:16 Sonja Edström (Sweden) 38:23
-women's 3x5km Sirkka Polkunen, Mirja Hietamies, Siiri Rantanen (Finland) 1:09.01 Lyubov Kozyreva, Alevtina Kolchina, Radia Yeroshina (USSR) 1:09.28 Irma Johansson, Anna-Lisa Eriksson, Sonja Edström (Sweden) 1:09.48
FIGURE SKATING      
-men's Hayes Alan Jenkins (US) Ronnie Robertson (US) David Jenkins (US)
-women's Tenley Albright (US) Carol Heiss (US) Ingrid Wendl (Austria)
-pairs Elisabeth Schwartz and Kurt Oppelt (Austria) Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden (Canada) Marianna Nagy and László Nagy (Hungary)
ICE HOCKEY      
  Soviet Union United States Canada
NORDIC COMBINED      
-individual Sverre Stenersen (Norway) 455.000 Bengt Eriksson (Sweden) 437.400 Franciszek Gasienica Gron (Poland) 436.800
SKI JUMPING      
-men's 70m individual Antti Hyvärinen (Finland) 227.0 Aulis Kallakorpi (Finland) 225.0 Harry Glaß (Germany) 224.5
SPEED SKATING      
-men's 500m Yevgeny Grishin (USSR) 40.2 Rafail Grach (USSR) 40.8 Alv Gjestvang (Norway) 41.0
-men's 1,500m Yevgeny Grishin (USSR) 2:08.6 Yuri Mikhaylov (USSR) 2:08.6 Toivo Salonen (Finland) 2:09.4
-men's 5,000m Boris Shilkov (USSR) 7:48.7 Sigvard Ericsson (Sweden) 7:56.7 Oleg Goncharenko (USSR) 7:57.5
-men's 10,000m Sigvard Ericsson (Sweden) 16:35.9 Knut Johannesen (Norway) 16:36.9 Oleg Goncharenko (USSR) 16:42.3

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This page was last updated on 07/03/2015.

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