The Winter Olympic Games will have been held 20 times when Torino 2006 begins on February 10. These locations make for great apres ski conversation including good trivia challenges.
Good trivia questions include what cities have hosted the Games more than once and and when? Have the Olympics been held in Italy before? In 1994, the International Olympic Committee changed the cycle of Summer and Winter Games being in the same year: where were those Games held? How many times have the Games been held in North America and where? Where are the next Winter Olympic Games scheduled to be held after Torino?
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Posted in Winter Olympics
It’s always good to have a personal connection with the Olympics, and Torino 2006 could be a special year for the State of Maine. Seth Wescott is the reigning 2005 World Boardercross Champion and has been selected to compete in that event in Torino next month. Seth Wescott is a resident of Carrabassett Valley, Maine, which is home to Sugarloaf/USA and, when off the slopes, acts just like any local Sugarloafer. We’ve always known him as an awesome snowboarder, especially in the pipe and park but his successes have begun to give him international exposure and Torino should be just another step in that career!
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Posted in Seth Wescott, Winter Olympics
Just where are the Winter Olympics being held, anyhow? While searching the web, I’ve noticed no less than three spellings for that city in Italy; Turin, Turino, and Torino. In the spirit of the Games, it’s ‘caio’ (Italian for a familiar goodbye) to confusion and ‘pronto’ (Italian for hello on the telephone) to figuring this out. Just what is the name of that place where most of the world’s best winter athletes are going to meet on February 10?!
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Posted in Winter Olympics
The annoucement of the medal design for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turino included the presence of famed skier Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the IOC’s Coordination Commission. It’s an ideal choice, given that Jean-Claude won three gold medals at the 1968 Winter Games on his home turf in Grenoble, France. He was only the second skier to ever accomplish that feat (Austria’s Toni Sailer at the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy Games was first), and no skier has since won more than two Alpine events at any one Olympic Games. Killy’s skiing triple crown in 1968 plus a World Cup Tour victory that year (his second in a row) made him the most recognized skier of the 60s and 70s and elevated him to the status of a ‘Great’ of skiing history.
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Posted in Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympics open in 4 weeks! The opening ceremonies for the 20th Winter Olympic Games will be held on February 10, 2006 in Turino, Italy. Turin was awared the Games in 1999, beating out a total of five candidate cities, including Helsinki (Finland), Klagenfurt (Austria), Poprad-Tatry (Slovak Republic), Sion (Switzerland), and Zakopane (Poland). I was in Turino 10 years ago and found it to be a unique alternative to better known Italian cities such as Rome and Venice. Turino was actually the capital of Italy until 1945 and has a beautiful setting at the edge of the foothills of the Alps.
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Posted in Winter Olympics