Host City Selection
Location of Oslo in NorwayOslo had unsuccessfully bid to host the 1936 Winter Olympics, losing to Germany, which had hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics. At that time, the nation that hosted the Summer Olympics also hosted the Winter Olympics. After the 1936 Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to award the Winter and Summer Games to different countries, but the Games were suspended during World War II. London hosted the first post-war Games, the 1948 Summer Olympics, and recommended Oslo as the host city for the 1948 Winter Games, but the city council declined. Instead, the 1948 Winter Olympics were held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Norwegians were undecided about hosting a Winter Olympics. Culturally they were opposed to competitive winter sports, particularly skiing events, despite the success of Norwegian athletes at previous Winter Games. But the organizers believed the 1952 Games could be an opportunity to promote national unity and to show the world that Norway had recovered from the war. Vying with Oslo for the right to host the Games were Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and Lake Placid, United States. The IOC voted to award the 1952 Winter Games to Oslo on 1 June 1947 at the 40th IOC Session in Stockholm, Sweden. Later, Cortina d'Ampezzo was awarded the 1956 Games, and Lake Placid—which had hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics—was chosen to host the 1980 Winter Games. Norway became the first Scandinavian country to host a Winter Olympics, and the 1952 Winter Games the first to be held in a nation's capital.
Read more about this topic: 1952 Winter Olympics
Famous quotes containing the words host, city and/or selection:
“For the shoe pinches, even though it fits perfectly.
Apples were made to be gathered, also the whole host of the world’s ailments and troubles.
There is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation.
Tomorrow you’ll weep what of it?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)