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2006 Winter Olympic Games

XX Olympic Winter Games
2006 Winter Olympics logo.svg
The emblem shows a stylized profile of the Mole Antonelliana, drawn in ice crystals in white and blue, signifying the snow and the sky. The crystal web also portrays the web of new technologies and the Olympic spirit of community.
Host city Turin, Italy
Motto Passion Lives Here (Italian: La Passione Vive Qui)
Nations participating 80
Athletes participating 2,508 (1,548 men; 960 women)
Events 84 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)
Opening ceremony February 10
Closing ceremony February 26
Officially opened by President Carlo Ciampi
Athlete's Oath Giorgio Rocca
Judge's Oath Fabio Bianchetti
Olympic Torch Stefania Belmondo
Stadium Stadio Olimpico
Winter:
United StatesSalt Lake 2002 CanadaVancouver 2010  >
Summer:
GreeceAthens 2004 ChinaBeijing 2008  >

The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) (Italian: XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and commonly known as Torino 2006, was a winter multi-sport event which was held in Turin, Italy, from February 10 to 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956. Italy also hosted the Games of the XVII Olympiad in Rome in 1960. Turin was selected as the host city for the 2006 games in June 1999.

The official logo displayed the name "Torino", the Italian name of the city; the city is known as "Turin" in both English and the local traditional language, Piedmontese. The Olympic mascots of the games were Neve ("snow" in Italian), a female snowball, and Gliz, a male ice cube. The official motto of the XX Olympic Winter Games was "Passion lives here".

Turin was chosen as the host of the Olympics on June 19, 1999, at the 109th IOC Session in Seoul, South Korea. This was after the IOC had adopted new election procedures during the 108th Extraordinary IOC Session in light of the corruption scandals surrounding the votes for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics.

Since IOC members were forbidden from visiting the candidate cities (in the interests of reducing bribery), the 109th IOC Session elected a special body, the Selection College, to choose finalist cities from the pool of candidate cities after each had made their final presentations to the full IOC Session.

The full IOC Session then voted on the cities chosen as finalist cities by the Selection College. Although six cities launched candidacies and made presentations to the full IOC Session, the Selection College chose only two cities to go forward to be voted upon by the full IOC Session: Sion and Turin. The candidacies of Helsinki, Finland; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Zakopane, Poland; and Klagenfurt, Austria were dropped by the Selection College after all six candidate cities made their candidate presentations.


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