1964 Olympics

The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games, is a multi-sport winter event held from January 29th to February 9th, 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria. The Games featured 1091 athletes from 36 countries and carried the Olympic Torch to Joseph Rieder, a former alpine skier who had competed in the 1956 Winter Olympics. The Games were affected during training by the deaths of Australian alpine skier Ross Milne and British lugeracer Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski, and three years afterwards by the deaths of the entire U.S. hockey team and family members. Just Innsbruck applied for an invitation against Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and Lahti, Finland to host the 1964 Winter Olympics. This is the same tally of votes this took place on May 26, 1959, at the 55th IOC Session in Munich, West Germany: the games were opened by a concert conducted by the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Böhm's baton. The first concert included 7th Symphony by Beethoven, and 40th Symphony by Mozart. Historically the warm Innsbruck had been influenced by a lack of snow. The Austrian army removed 20,000 ice cubes from the top of a mountain and sent them to tracks of bobsleigh and luge. They provided the alpine ski courses with 40,000 cubic metres of snow too. The Soldiers rushed down the slopes by hand and foot. All the women's speed skating events are headed by Lidia Skoblikova. Italian bobsleigh pilot Eugenio Monti has enriched himself by helping Britain's Tony Nash and Robin Dixon win the gold medals and sending them a cracked axle bolt to repair it. The Italians took bronze, but Monti was first elected recipient of the Pierre de Coubertin sportsmanship award. Austrian Egon Zimmermann took the gold medal in the alpine downhill skiing championship for men. Knut Johannesen from Norway hit fastest time at the Olympics in the men's 5,000 m speed skating event. Klavdiya Boyarskikh of the U.S.S.R. won three gold medals in cross-country skiing, and Finnish Eero Mäntyranta won two on the men's side and received the nickname "Mr. Seefeld" after his success in the position. The French sisters Christine and Marielle Goitschel finished first and second in slalom and giant slalom in alpine skiing, respectively. Ski jumping took on a second event, and the Olympic debut in the luge competition. The Games have been previously noteworthy as East and West Germany formed a combined squad the last time. The Closing Ceremonies first took place in a venue other than the opening ceremonies. In Innsbruck 36 Rivals had been allocated to play. China, Mongolia and North Korea took part in the Winter Games for the very first time. Players from West Germany and East Germany played together as the United Team from 1956 to 1964.Australian alpine skier Ross Milne and British luge slider KazimierzKay-Skrzypeski died while practising and exercising just before the Olympics. The planning commission previously said Ross fell into a tree during a hearing. The IOC also said inexperience may have been a factor in Ross's death. Boss John Wagner suggested that overcrowding played a role in beating a multitude of competitors, saying that Milne had been attempting to slow down "on a position you couldn't jump or run" His uncle Malcolm Milne competed at the 1968 and 1972 Winter Olympics. On the road to the Prague World Championships on 15 February 1961, when Sabena Flight 548 crashed in Brussels, Belgium, the entire United States Figure Skating team and other club members, coaches, and officials were killed. The event prompted the cancellation of the World Championships of1961 which demanded the creation of a new American skating programme. Gold won on 34 athletic competitions in six different disciplines.