The 1956 Winter Olympics were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from January 26 to February 5, 1956. 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 | |
| BOBSLED | |||
| 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 | |
