2006 Winter Olympics
The XX Olympic Winter Games will be held in Torino, Italy from February 10 to 26 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.
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 [1].
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.
Torino woes
Bankrupcy 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 board meeting.
Finally the Italian Government promised to cover the shortfall.
Subway Construction
A VAL subway system was expected to be built for the Olympics. Finally the subway will be opened late, on a shorter stretch than originally expected, and only one week before the opening of the Games, raising concerns over the availability of the network during the Olympics.
Olympic villages
Venues
- Olympic areas
- Official olympic training sites
- Olympic mountain training site
Sports/events
- Alpine skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsleigh
- Cross country skiing
- Curling
- Figure skating
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice hockey
- Luge
- Nordic combined
- Short track speed skating
- Skeleton
- Ski jumping
- Snowboarding
- Speed skating
Calendar
Participating NOCs
The Turin Web Site confirms that there are to be 85 National Olympic Committees present at the 2006 Winter Olympics. There is no confirmation yet that all those present at the Salt Lake City games will be at Torino.
See also
External links
- Official Website - In Italian, English and French
- Town of Torino - In Italian, English, French, Spanish and German
- Photos of Bardonecchia
- Photos of Torino
- Torino 2006 Olympic Games coverage by Community-online.com
News
Extra info
