After resting in Sesto Sexten, we headed to Innsbruck home of the 1964 & 1976 Winter Olympics. Sarah was our torch bearer and wins a prize of a book. Last week we learned of the curious tale of the 1976 Olympics so this week we will have a review of the 1964 events. Calgary were the runner up bidder, but as you know prevailed later in 1988. The 1964 organising committee forgot to order the ……snow! The Austrian Army stepped forward and delivered 20,000 m3 just in time. Lastly, we should remember Italy’s Eugenio Monti, for a wonderful act of sportsmanship for which he was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin World Trophy. Read all about it here here
Innsbruck Courtesy of reisenexclusiv.com
Eugenio Monti, Courtesy of Wikipedia
1976 was also the year of the first formal Winter Paralympics. But not in Innsbruck, it was arranged as an entirely separate event in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. It wasn’t until Albertville, France in 1992 that a common venue was chosen for both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
Bumper Crowds at the 1936 Winter Olympics
Next up we headed into Germany at the mountain village of Scharnitz. Andrea was carrying our torch at the border and wins a prize of a book. Just across the border we stopped at Garmisch-Partenkirchen home of the 1936 Olympics, presided over by Hitler, as were the summer Olympics held in Berlin that year too. This was the first Olympics to feature the alpine skiing events! Famously, 150,000 spectators showed up to watch the ski jump, and the Hockey gold was won by Great Britain, Canada winning silver! (Ok the GB team was entirely made up of Canadians with British heritage.)
Heading south back through Austria took us into Switzerland crossing at the border town of Schalkl. Appropriately Barb was carrying the torch here and wins a prize of a book.
Next stop was Saint Moritz (with Maggie holding the torch and winning a book), home of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics and the famous Cresta Run skeleton-toboggan track built in 1884. Women were banned from riding the Cresta Run from 1929 for the next 90 years due to fears that it caused breast cancer?! Here is a photo of a female rider from 1904, hats off to her! Paul carried the torch into Saint Moritz and won a prize of a book. Both of the Saint Moritz Olympics were blighted by the Föhn, a strong southerly warm wind. The 1928 the 50km cross country ski race saw temperatures rise from zero at the start to 25 deg C. This caused havoc for the waxing. The race was won by Swede Per Erik Hedlund in just under 5 hours, with a lead of 13+ minutes over silver. On the day he wore a white suit instead of the official Swedish blue, and since then Sweden has followed his lead and adopted white as their colour for their national team. Elsewhere, Canada won the hockey gold with a record breaking goal margin of 38-0 over the tournament.
From Saint Moritz we passed though Milan (with Steve holding the torch and winning a book). Milan is co-host of the 2026 Winter Olympics with Cortina, so we stopped by for Sid to check in on the hockey arena construction….. still going on. Next stop, Turin the home of the 2006 Olympic events. Canada won an impressive 24 medals. Amongst their stars were Cindy Klassen wining a gold, two silvers and two bronzes in the speed skating and Canmore’s Chandra Crawford winning the gold in the cross country sprint. Then CBC commentator Brian Willams watching the medal ceremony said of Chandra: "If you're ever standing on top of the podium, this is how you sing our national anthem.” Watch and learn here!
Cindy Klassen practising her weight lifting!
24 days in Sid, our chauffer advised us the odometer read an impressive 705 km for the week and 2,597 km overall. Well done team, we have now visited 9 Olympic sites and 11 countries!
