The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the VII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from 26 January to 5 February 1956. A total of 821 athletes representing 32 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in these Games in 24 events across 8 disciplines. ^[1] The Olympic program was similar to four years prior, with two new cross-country events added to the competition. Both men and women competed at these Games, though women only contested events in alpine skiing, figure skating, and cross-country skiing. The Soviet Union attempted to secure the inclusion of a women's speed skating event, but this was rejected by the IOC at its 49th session in Athens in 1954. ^[2] Women would compete in speed skating four years later at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. ^[3]

A total of 131 athletes won medals in Cortina d'Ampezzo. ^[4] In their Winter Olympic debut, ^[1] athletes from the Soviet Union won sixteen medals, seven of which were gold. Both medal totals were the most of any NOC at the Games. Two of these seven medals were earned in a single event, the 1500 meters speed skating competition, when two Soviet skaters tied for first place in a world record time. ^[5] Athletes from Austria and Sweden won the second and third most medals, with 11 and 10 respectively. Of the 32 NOCs that competed in Cortina d'Ampezzo, 13 won at least one medal. Host nation Italy won three medals, all in bobsleigh. ^[6]

Cross-country skier Sixten Jernberg of Sweden won four medals, and Austrian Toni Sailer won three gold medals in alpine skiing, both of which were the most of any athlete in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Tenley Albright improved on her silver medal from four years prior in Oslo to win the gold medal in ladies figure skating. ^[7] The Soviet Union won six medals—exactly half of the medals awarded—in speed skating, with two each being won by Yevgeny Grishin and Oleg Goncharenko. Grishin would repeat his performance with golds in the same two events four years later in Squaw Valley. ^[8]

Alpine skiing

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's downhill [9] details	Toni Sailer   Austria	Raymond Fellay   Switzerland	Anderl Molterer   Austria
Men's giant slalom [10] details	Toni Sailer   Austria	Anderl Molterer   Austria	Walter Schuster   Austria
Men's slalom [11] details	Toni Sailer   Austria	Chiharu Igaya   Japan	Stig Sollander   Sweden
Women's downhill [12] details	Madeleine Berthod   Switzerland	Frieda Dänzer   Switzerland	Lucille Wheeler   Canada
Women's giant slalom [13] details	Ossi Reichert   United Team of Germany	Putzi Frandl   Austria	Thea Hochleitner   Austria
Women's slalom [14] details	Renée Colliard   Switzerland	Regina Schöpf   Austria	Yevgeniya Sidorova   Soviet Union

Bobsleigh

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's two-man details	Italy (ITA) [15] Italy I Lamberto Dalla Costa Giacomo Conti	Italy (ITA) [15] Italy II Eugenio Monti Renzo Alverà	Switzerland (SUI) [16] Switzerland I Max Angst Harry Warburton
Men's four-man details	Switzerland (SUI) [16] Switzerland I Franz Kapus Gottfried Diener Robert Alt Heinrich Angst	Italy (ITA) [15] Italy II Eugenio Monti Ulrico Girardi Renzo Alverà Renato Mocellini	United States (USA) [17] USA I Arthur Tyler William Dodge Charles Butler James Lamy

Cross-country skiing

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's 15 km [18] details	Hallgeir Brenden   Norway	Sixten Jernberg   Sweden	Pavel Kolchin   Soviet Union
Men's 30 km [19] details	Veikko Hakulinen   Finland	Sixten Jernberg   Sweden	Pavel Kolchin   Soviet Union
Men's 50 km [20] details	Sixten Jernberg   Sweden	Veikko Hakulinen   Finland	Fyodor Terentyev   Soviet Union
Men's 4×10 km details	Soviet Union (URS) [21] Fyodor Terentyev Pavel Kolchin Nikolay Anikin Vladimir Kuzin	Finland (FIN) [22] August Kiuru Jorma Kortelainen Arvo Viitanen Veikko Hakulinen	Sweden (SWE) [23] Lennart Larsson Gunnar Samuelsson Per-Erik Larsson Sixten Jernberg
Women's 10 km [24] details	Lyubov Kozyreva   Soviet Union	Radya Yeroshina   Soviet Union	Sonja Edström   Sweden
Women's 3×5 km details	Finland (FIN) [22] Sirkka Polkunen Mirja Hietamies Siiri Rantanen	Soviet Union (URS) [21] Lyubov Kozyreva Alevtina Kolchina Radya Yeroshina	Sweden (SWE) [23] Irma Johansson Anna-Lisa Eriksson Sonja Edström

Figure skating

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's [25] details	Hayes Alan Jenkins   United States	Ronnie Robertson   United States	David Jenkins   United States
Ladies' [26] details	Tenley Albright   United States	Carol Heiss   United States	Ingrid Wendl   Austria
Pairs details	Austria (AUT) [27] Sissy Schwarz Kurt Oppelt	Canada (CAN) [28] Frances Dafoe Norris Bowden	Hungary (HUN) [29] Marianna Nagy László Nagy

Ice hockey

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's team details	Soviet Union (URS) [31] Yevgeny Babich Vsevolod Bobrov Alexei Guryshev Nikolay Khlystov Valentin Kuzin Yuri Krylov Alfred Kuchevsky Grigory Mkrtychan Viktor Nikiforov Yuri Pantyukhov Nikolaï Puchkov Viktor Shuvalov Genrikh Sidorenkov Nikolai Sologubov Ivan Tregubov Dmitry Ukolov Aleksandr Uvarov	United States (USA) [32] Wendell Anderson Wellington Burtnett Eugene Campbell Gordon Christian Bill Cleary Richard Dougherty Willard Ikola John Matchefts John Mayasich Daniel McKinnon Richard Meredith Weldon Olson John Petroske Kenneth Purpur Don Rigazio Richard Rodenheiser Ed Sampson	Canada (CAN) [33] Denis Brodeur Charles Brooker William Colvin Alfred Horne Art Hurst Byrle Klinck Paul Knox Ken Laufman Howard Lee James Logan Floyd Martin Jack McKenzie Donald Rope George Scholes Gerry Theberge Robert White Keith Woodall

Nordic combined

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's individual [35] details	Sverre Stenersen   Norway	Bengt Eriksson   Sweden	Franciszek Gąsienica Groń   Poland

Ski jumping

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's individual [36] details	Antti Hyvärinen   Finland	Aulis Kallakorpi   Finland	Harry Glaß   United Team of Germany

Speed skating

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's 500 metres [37] details	Yevgeny Grishin   Soviet Union	Rafayel Grach   Soviet Union	Alv Gjestvang   Norway
Men's 1500 metres [5] details	Yevgeny Grishin   Soviet Union	None awarded [a]	Toivo Salonen   Finland
	Yuri Mikhaylov   Soviet Union
Men's 5000 metres [38] details	Boris Shilkov   Soviet Union	Sigvard Ericsson   Sweden	Oleg Goncharenko   Soviet Union
Men's 10000 metres [39] details	Sigvard Ericsson   Sweden	Knut Johannesen   Norway	Oleg Goncharenko   Soviet Union

Multiple medalists

Athletes who won multiple medals during the 1956 Winter Olympics are listed below.

Athlete	Nation	Sport	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Sixten Jernberg	Sweden (SWE)	Cross-country skiing	1	2	1	4
Toni Sailer	Austria (AUT)	Alpine skiing	3	0	0	3
Veikko Hakulinen	Finland (FIN)	Cross-country skiing	1	2	0	3
Pavel Kolchin	Soviet Union (URS)	Cross-country skiing	1	0	2	3
Yevgeny Grishin	Soviet Union (URS)	Speed skating	2	0	0	2
Lyubov Kozyreva	Soviet Union (URS)	Cross-country skiing	1	1	0	2
Sigvard Ericsson	Sweden (SWE)	Speed skating	1	1	0	2
Fyodor Terentyev	Soviet Union (URS)	Cross-country skiing	1	0	1	2
Renzo Alverà	Italy (ITA)	Bobsleigh	0	2	0	2
Eugenio Monti	Italy (ITA)	Bobsleigh	0	2	0	2
Radya Yeroshina	Soviet Union (URS)	Cross-country skiing	0	2	0	2
Anderl Molterer	Austria (AUT)	Alpine skiing	0	1	1	2
Sonja Edström	Sweden (SWE)	Cross-country skiing	0	0	2	2
Oleg Goncharenko	Soviet Union (URS)	Speed skating	0	0	2	2

Note

• ^a No silver medal was awarded in this event because Grishin and Mikhaylov tied for first place with a world record time of 2:08.6. ^[40]

See also

• 1956 Winter Olympics medal table

References

External links

• "Cortina D'Ampezzo 1956". Olympics.com. International Olympic Committee.
• Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Games". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
• Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (1956). VII Olympic Winter Games: Official Report (PDF). Cortina d'Ampezzo. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2010. Retrieved 1 October 2010.{{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link)