The XX Olympic Winter Games were held from 10 to 26 February 2006 in Turin, Italy. It was the second time Italy had hosted the Winter Games, the first being in 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo.
Turin was selected as the host city for the 2006 Games in June 1999. The official motto of Torino 2006 was "Passion lives here". 2,494 (1,539 men and 955 women) from 80 countries competed at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games in 84 events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports.
The Snowboard Cross was included in the Olympic program for the first time in Torino 2006.
The Alpine skiing events at the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics were held at Sestriere and Cesana-San Sicario. Sestriere was the venue for all the Men's Alpine Skiing competitions. The Women's events of the 2006 Winter Olympics were held at San Sicario.
The 2006 Olympic Games were particularly satisfactory for the Austrian skiers winning a total of 14 medals. Two skiers from Austria won two gold medals in Turin: Michaela Dorfmeister and Benjamin Raich. Dorfmeister won the gold medal in the Downhill and the Super-G. Raich won gold medals in Slalom and Giant Slalom.
Before the 2006 Turin Winter Games, Finland had won 71 medals in cross-country skiing, but not a single one in Alpine Skiing. Tanja Poutiainen broke this winless streak when she won the silver medal in the last Women’s event of the Games, the Giant Slalom.
Michaela Dorfmeister arrived at the Games as the leader of the Downhill and Super-G World Cup standings.
Dorfmeister confirmed her favorite status and won the gold medal at the Women's Downhill held at San Sicario, Martina Schild of Switzerland took the silver and Anja Pärson of Sweden was the bronze medalist.
Five days later Dorfmeister won the gold medal in the Super-G, Janica Kostelić of Croatia took the silver, and Alexandra Meissnitzer was the bronze medalist.
Defending World and Olympic Champion Janica Kostelić won the Alpine Combined event her fourth Olympic gold medal. She is the only woman to win four gold medals in Alpine Skiing at the Winter Games (in 2002 and 2006), and the only woman to win three Alpine Skiing gold medals in one Games (2002).
Anja Pärson won her first and only Olympic gold medal in the Slalom event. She also won two bronze medals in Downhill and Combined in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
The last event of the women's Alpine Skiing, the Giant Slalom, took place on Friday, February 24th. US Skier Julia Mancuso was the winner. Her gold medal at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics was unexpected, as she had just three World Cup podiums and only one of those podiums was in Giant Slalom, a third place in Ofterschwang, Germany.
Antoine Dénériaz won the gold medal in the Downhill held on the Kandahar Banchetta piste, beating the big favorite, defending World Cup Downhill champion, and leader of the 2005-2006 Downhill standings, Austrian Michael Walchhofer. Swiss Bruno Kernen finished in third place. Dénériaz's surprise win was by a margin of 0.72 seconds, the largest in this event in 42 years.
Two days after the Downhill the Combined event took place. These were the last Winter Games to use the traditional Combined format of one Downhill run and two Slalom runs. Starting in 2010, the Winter Games switched to the "Super-Combined" format of one run each of Downhill and Slalom.
A young Ted Ligety won the gold medal. Ivica Kostelić finished in second place, and Rainer Schönfelder rounded up the podium.
The defending Super-G Olympic champion Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway won the gold medal again in Torino 2006. Hermann Maier took the silver, and the bronze medalist was Ambrosi Hoffmann of Switzerland. Through 2018, this is the only successful Olympic title defense in a Men's Alpine speed event. It was Aamodt's third victory in the Super-G (1992, 2002, 2006) and his eighth Olympic medal.
By winning the Super-G race at the 2006 Olympics, Aamodt became the first male alpine skier to win four gold medals in the Olympics.
Benjamin Raich won his first gold medal at the 2006 Winter Games in the Giant Slalom. French Joël Chenal finished in second place. Raich's teammate Hermann Maier was third.
The Austrians swept the Men's Slalom medals led by Benjamin Raich on the last Alpine Skiing race of the Winter Games. Reinfried Herbst won the silver medal, and Rainer Schönfelder won his second bronze medal in Turin.
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