The XX Olympic Winter Games will be held in Turin, Italy from February
10th through the 26th in 2006. This will be the second time that Italy will host
the Olympic Winter Games, as it hosted the VII Olympic Winter Games in Cortina
d'Ampezzo in 1956, and the third time overall that Italy will host an Olympic
Games, as it also staged the Games of the XVII Olympiad in Rome in 1960.
In the organization of the Games some 20,000 volunteers are engaged (selected
among over 40,000) that will be employed in the reception of the athletes,
spectators and journalists, and competition fields preparation.
Neve and Gliz are the mascots of the 2006 Torino winter Olympics. Neve is a
female snowball, and Gliz is an energetic male ice cube.
Host selection process
Torino was chosen as the host of the Olympics in 1999, defeating Sion
(Switzerland), 53 votes to 36. This was just after the IOC had adopted new
election procedures during the 108th Extraordinary IOC Session in light of the
corruption scandals surrounding the votes for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics.
Since IOC members were forbidden to visit the candidate cities, 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 will then vote on the cities
chosen as finalist cities by the Selection College. Although six cities launched
candidacies and made presentations to the full IOC Session in Seoul in June
1999, the Selection College chose only two cities to go forward to be voted upon
by the full IOC Session: Sion and Turin. The candidacies of Helsinki, Finland;
Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Zakopane, Poland; and Klagenfurt, Austria were dropped
by the Selection College after all six candidate cities made their candidate
presentations to the full session.
The selection of Torino over Sion came as a surprise, since Sion was the
overwhelming favourite. This was felt as the combinations of three factors : the
skills of the Italian bid team, the wish of the IOC to compensate Italy for the
recent selection of Athens over Rome for the 2004 Summer Olympics and finally a
way to retaliate against Switzerland for the whistleblower role played by IOC
member Marc Hodler in the revelation of the 2002 corruption scandal.
Bankruptcy threats
The financial situation of the Organizing Committee has gradually become more
and more difficult.
The latest development was a 64 million euro financial shortfall appearing at
the end of 2005, due to the fact that Italy’s draft budget for 2006, did not
include the government’s final 40 million euro allocation to Olympic organizers.
This shortfall could have led to a bankruptcy procedures for the Turin 2006
Games.
The concerns went as far as starting to define the first step of a bankruptcy
procedure for Torino 2006, which could have happened if the organizing committee
had failed to approve its budget at a January 20, 2006 board meeting.
Finally the Italian Government promised to cover the shortfall.
| 2006 Winter Olympics
medal count |
| Pos |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Total |
| 1 |
Germany |
11 |
12 |
6 |
29 |
| 2 |
United States |
9 |
9 |
7 |
25 |
| 3 |
Austria |
9 |
7 |
7 |
23 |
| 4 |
Russia |
8 |
6 |
8 |
22 |
| 5 |
Canada |
7 |
10 |
7 |
24 |
| 6 |
Sweden |
7 |
2 |
5 |
14 |
| 7 |
Korea |
6 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
| 8 |
Switzerland |
5 |
4 |
5 |
14 |
| 9 |
Italy |
5 |
0 |
6 |
11 |
| 10 |
France |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| Netherlands |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| 12 |
Estonia |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| 13 |
Norway |
2 |
8 |
9 |
19 |
| 14 |
China |
2 |
4 |
5 |
11 |
| 15 |
Czech Republic |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
| 16 |
Croatia |
1 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
| 17 |
Australia |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| 18 |
Japan |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| 19 |
Finland |
0 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
| 20 |
Poland |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
| 21 |
Belarus |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Bulgaria |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Great Britain |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Slovakia |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| 25 |
Ukraine |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| 26 |
Latvia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| |
|
84 |
84 |
84 |
252 |
|
