2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics (Italian: 2006 Olimpiadi invernali), officially the XX Olympic Winter Games (Italian: XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February in Turin, Italy. This marked the second time Italy had hosted the Winter Olympics, the first being in 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo; Italy had also hosted the Summer Olympics in 1960 in Rome.
"Torino 2006" and "Turin 2006" redirect here. For the Winter Paralympics, see 2006 Winter Paralympics.
Turin was selected as the host city for the 2006 Games in June 1999. The official motto of Torino 2006 was "Passion lives here".[1] The Games' logo depicted a stylized profile of the Mole Antonelliana building, drawn in white and blue ice crystals, signifying the snow and the sky. The crystal web was also meant to portray the web of new technologies and the Olympic spirit of community. The 2006 Olympic mascots were Neve ("snow" in Italian), a female snowball, and Gliz, a male ice cube.[2]
Italy is scheduled to host the Winter Olympics in 2026 in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, 20 years after the 2006 event.
Cost and cost overrun[edit]
The Oxford Olympics Study established the outturn cost of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics at US $4.4 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 80% in real terms.[10] This includes sports-related costs only, that is, (i) operational costs incurred by the organizing committee for the purpose of staging the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services, and (ii) direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build, e.g., the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games. Indirect capital costs are not included, such as for road, rail, or airport infrastructure, or for hotel upgrades or other business investment incurred in preparation for the Games but not directly related to staging the Games. The cost and cost overrun for Torino 2006 compares with costs of US$2.5 billion and a cost overrun of 13% for Vancouver 2010, and costs of US$51 billion and a cost overrun of 289% for Sochi 2014, the latter being the most costly Olympics to date. Average cost for Winter Games since 1960 is US$3.1 billion, average cost overrun is 142%.
Security measures[edit]
As with every Olympics since the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics and then increasingly since the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, there was heavy security due to fears of terrorism.
The organizers further increased security measures[46] in connection with the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and insisted that the Olympic Games were going to be safe, which they were; the Olympics concluded without a major breach of security occurring.