The 2006 Winter Olympics (Italian: 2006 Olimpiadi invernali), officially the XX Olympic Winter Games (Italian: XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February in Turin, Italy. This marked the second time Italy had hosted the Winter Olympics, the first being in 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo; Italy had also hosted the Summer Olympics in 1960 in Rome.
Turin was selected as the host city for the 2006 Games in June 1999. The official motto of Torino 2006 was "Passion lives here".[1] The Games' logo depicted a stylized profile of the Mole Antonelliana building, drawn in white and blue ice crystals, signifying the snow and the sky. The crystal web was also meant to portray the web of new technologies and the Olympic spirit of community. The 2006 Olympic mascots were Neve ("snow" in Italian), a female snowball, and Gliz, a male ice cube.[2]
Italy is scheduled to host the Winter Olympics in 2026 in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, 20 years after the 2006 event.
Turin was chosen as the host of the Olympics at the 109th IOC Session in Seoul, South Korea on 19 June 1999.[3] This decision was the first bidding process, after the IOC had adopted new election procedures during the 108th Extraordinary IOC Session in light of the controversies surrounding the votes for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics.[4]
Since IOC members were forbidden from visiting the candidate cities (in the interests of reducing bribery), the 109th IOC Session elected a special body, the Selection College, to choose finalist cities from the pool of candidate cities after each had made their final presentations to the full IOC Session.
The full IOC Session then voted on the cities chosen as finalist cities by the Selection College. Although six European cities presented their projects. Only two would advance to the final stage, which was the choice of the host city. At the first phase, all had to make the preliminary presentation in full IOC Session. All the members of the Selection College had to be present at the audience and it was their responsibility to decide which would be the two finalists. They decided that the cities were: the big favorite Sion and the dark horse of the process: Turin.[3] The bids of Helsinki, Finland; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Zakopane, Poland; and Klagenfurt, Austria were dropped by the Selection College after all six bidding cities made their presentations.[5]
The selection of Turin over Sion came as a surprise around the world since the Swiss city was seen as the overwhelming favorite in part because the IOC had their headquarters in Switzerland.[6] Some analysts attribute the choice of Turin as a reaction to Swiss IOC member Marc Hodler's role in exposing the bribery scandal surrounding Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics[7]
The information below comes from the International Olympic Committee Vote History Archived 25 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine web page.
The Oxford Olympics Study established the outturn cost of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics at US$4.4 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 80% in real terms.[10] This includes sports-related costs only, that is, (i) operational costs incurred by the organizing committee for the purpose of staging the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services, and (ii) direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build, e.g., the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games. Indirect capital costs are not included, such as for road, rail, or airport infrastructure, or for hotel upgrades or other business investment incurred in preparation for the Games but not directly related to staging the Games. The cost and cost overrun for Torino 2006 compares with costs of US$2.5 billion and a cost overrun of 13% for Vancouver 2010, and costs of US$51 billion and a cost overrun of 289% for Sochi 2014, the latter being the most costly Olympics to date. Average cost for Winter Games since 1960 is US$3.1 billion, average cost overrun is 142%.
The 2006 Winter Olympics featured 84 medal events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports.[11] Unlike the previous four editions of the Winter Games, no new sport/discipline was introduced. Eight new events were added in disciplines already on the Olympic program, including mass start in biathlon, team sprint in cross-country skiing, boarder cross in snowboard, and team pursuit in speed skating, all with both men's and women's competitions.[12] The International Ski Federation introduced an alternating system for cross-country skiing styles in certain events. Long-distance races (30 km for women and 50 km for men) that were contested in the classic style during the 2002 Winter Olympics were freestyle events in Torino.
The sports and disciplines that were contested at the 2006 Games:
Biathlon (10) ()
Curling (2) ()
Ice hockey (2) ()
Luge (3) ()
Figure skating (4) ()
Short track speed skating (8) ()
Speed skating (12) ()
Alpine skiing (10) ()
Cross-country skiing (12) ()
Freestyle skiing (4) ()
Nordic combined (3) ()
Ski jumping (3) (
