Graphic that says Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Torch Relay and Opening Ceremony, with a picture of the 1956 Winter Olympic cauldron against the mountains of Cortina.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics: Torch Relay and Opening Ceremony

Release Date: April 9, 2026

Category: Podcast | Cortina 1956

Step back in time to Cortina 1956! We’re back with another Olympics history episode, looking at the torch relay and Opening Ceremony for the Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 Winter Olympics.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics: The Olympic Torch Relay

These two events were both vastly different than what we saw at Milano Cortina 2026. In 2026, the torch relay had its traditional kickoff in Olympia, Greece, where an actress portraying an ancient Greek high priestess generated the Olympic flame from the sun (sadly, the weather forecast didn’t cooperate, so the event was held inside and a rehearsal flame was used to light the 2026 Winter Olympic torch).

Once lit, it traveled from Olympia to Athens, and then over to Rome, where runners then carried the flame to every province of Italy—some 12,000 kilometers—and finally to Milano and Cortina, where the final torchbearers (Alberto Tomba and Deborha Compagnoni in Milano and Sofia Goggia in Cortina) lit cauldrons in each location.

Back in 1956, plans were not that elaborate. A flame generation ceremony in Olympia didn’t even factor into the equation. Instead, Salvatore Rebecchini, the mayor of Rome, served as the high priest and generated the Olympic flame in the Italian capital a mere four days before the Opening Ceremony. After ceremonies there, it jetted over to Venice, where another ceremony took place at the Piazza San Marco. From there, it went by gondola to Venezia Mestre (where we stayed during the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics). From there, it went by road north to Cortina, starting with a leg on roller skates.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics: The Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony was also nothing like what we see today, and that may be in part due to the fact that Cortina 1956 was the first Games to be televised. The International Olympic Committee likely didn’t know how much of an impact television would have on the Games and how important the Opening Ceremony would become.

At Cortina 1956, the Opening Ceremony took place in the morning, and it was about one hour long—far different than today’s prime time spectacles. Missing were the big staged numbers and performances. Instead, this ceremony contained just the nuts and bolts: Parade of Nations, welcome speeches, the Olympic Hymn (a new one, which we discuss on the episode), cauldron lighting, and oaths.

The Olympic flame came on skis down the slopes of nearby mountains in dramatic fashion, with red, white and green rockets lighting the way. TV viewers got to see skiers with the torch intercut with the actual Opening Ceremony, something that was novel for television.

Unfortunately cauldron lighter Guido Caroli, a speed skater, tripped on a television cable and fell with the torch en route to the cauldron. The embarrassing gaffe was caught on camera, but luckily, the torch did not go out. Caroli was able to get up and light the cauldron to start the Games.

Even with a short ceremony, reporters found plenty to talk about. Our favorite items came from The Guardian’s KK Norsky, who had plenty to say about the athletes’ uniforms.

Listen to the full episode to find out what went down and the surprises we learned from the torch relay and Opening Ceremony at the Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics.

Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!

Sources used in this episode:

 

Photo: Jill Jaracz

 

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics -Torch Relay and Opening Ceremony

Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to another history episode of Keith, the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you all year long. We’re looking at the Corina Dam Peso 1956 Winter Olympics.

Is that, that is the historical games that. You, the listeners have chosen for us to cover and look back on, and every month we will feature a new story about those games and likely tie them into Milano Cortina 2026 since we were just there and we’ve got stuff that we learned at. Those games and places we saw at those games.

I am your host, Jill Jaracz, along with my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Hello, Alison. How are you?

Alison Brown: Bonno? We haven’t said that Bonno in a couple weeks. No, I think this is the first time we’re gonna be looking at history games where we’ve actually seen the places. [00:01:00] That the games took place. You know, we saw the stadium, we saw the ski jump.

We, we walked around the town and got a feel of it. So that, I think, is gonna bring a whole different perspective on these stories. ’cause we, we know the place now.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And it’s really cool to like look at, especially look at the stadium and see what a job they did. Renovating it and updating it to be continued to, or to continue to use it for modern times.

Alison Brown: Exactly that they took an outdoor stadium and made it an indoor stadium and has now become the big centerpiece of the town.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. and also when, we’ll, we’ll get to bobsled in a couple months, but I am also blown away by how bobsled was just kind of in town. You could walk to it.

Alison Brown: It was, it, it, you know, they were so dead set for 2026 and building that new, uh, that new track and how again, it’s just [00:02:00] integrated into this little ski town and part of the landscape.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics: The torch relay

Jill Jaracz: So it’s gonna be exciting to look back at 1956 and see how, you know how they did stuff then, and how it colored what happened this year as well. So this month we are going to be looking at the torch, relay and opening ceremony. Vastly different than what we saw in 2026, that’s for sure. uh, unlike today’s torch relays that start in Olympia, months before the opening ceremony, the flame for Cortina 1956 was lit in Rome on January 22.

Just four days before the opening ceremony,

Alison Brown: they got there quick. There was no two mile an hour run. It was, we’re speeding this right along.

Jill Jaracz: No, and this was also the days where the flame was not ignited in Olympia either. I think there, I think. But do not know that there was a thing about the Winter Games and Olympia, because it wasn’t.

The Olympics, you know?

Alison Brown: Right. Because there was no winter games in [00:03:00] Greece, obviously. Right? There was no skiing in the, in ancient Greece.

Jill Jaracz: Although, wouldn’t you love to find a dig that randomly threw all of that notion on its head?

Alison Brown: What? What is this? We think it is a Bob sled from ancient Greece,

Jill Jaracz: a bobsled chariot.

You never know.

Alison Brown: It could be

Jill Jaracz: been worse be.

Uh, anyway, so the, the flame was lit in Rome and Rome’s Mayor Salvato of Rebecca Andi, uh, served as the high priest at the Olympic flame lighting ceremony on the steps of the temple of Jupiter at the Capitol. And so the flame was ignited in this big tripod based cauldron that was sent from Olympia. Then once it was lit, then the, the flame went on a little procession through city Hall, went back out onto the steps for a little program, and then the first torch bearer was Olympic Runner.

Uh, Adolfo Kolini. He started the relay, which [00:04:00] included a drive to the airport where the flame was put on a special Italian Air Force plane bound for Venice. Which sense? Templeman to Venice and in Venice, there was a ceremony in the Piazza San Marco, just like we went to here just a couple months ago.

Alison Brown: I don’t think the EDM music was probably 1956.

Jill Jaracz: Oh no. Just nor foam. Foam

Alison Brown: light up foam sticks and probably no co. Well, there may have been Coca-Cola.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, there was Coca-Cola, I’m sure maybe at the torch relay, but you know, no etch your face on a can. Kind of,

Alison Brown: can I say I forgot my other can? No, it’s, it was in the fridge ’cause I was thinking I was gonna drink it and then it, my etched face.

So some, some poor housekeeping woman was terrified to see a Coke can with my face etched on it.

Jill Jaracz: Aw, which one did you leave?

Alison Brown: Well I ended up leaving both of them ’cause they were [00:05:00] together. Oh, but I drank one and I left that one on the counter to rinse and take with me, but I just, because I left.

Jill Jaracz: Aw.

Alison Brown: Yeah.

So I’m sorry. That’s a

Jill Jaracz: bummer.

Alison Brown: I’m sorry. Housekeeping.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, boy. so they had this ceremony in Piazza San Margaret, just like we went to, and then the flame went by gondola to Mare. Where we stayed and the relay proceeded, on land and the first leg was done on roller skates.

Alison Brown: Okay.

Jill Jaracz: So we, we have our unusual transportation all checked off.

It made its way to Zul, which is north in the Cortina area, and then was carried by a squadron of alpine ski troops up into the toe, the mountain range, mountain pest, where. Skiing was held, the alpine skiing where it spent the night before the opening ceremony at the chapel of the Madonna, Della Ny, a tiny chapel in the mountains.

Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics: The Opening Ceremony

Now, today’s Olympic ceremonies are [00:06:00] typically held on Friday evening, made for primetime tv, but the first opening ceremony to be broadcast on television because Corina. Brought broadcasting to the masses. Uh, that took place on a Thursday morning, January 26th at 11:30 AM at the new ice stadium in Cortina, which was the venue for ice hockey and figure skating.

And it was, uh, outdoor stadium as we have talked about before, three sided. And so like the fourth side kinda looks out onto the mountains and, uh. To make it safe to walk on during the opening ceremony because it was an ice floor ready to go for competition later that day. Nonetheless, uh, organizers laid out strips of coconut matting over the ice.

beyond that, there wasn’t a whole lot of special staging because we did have two hockey games at night at starting at 7:00 PM [00:07:00] nevertheless, the stadium looked full. Lots of people went to the show even though there wasn’t much going on. There was like about 12,000 people in attendance,

Alison Brown: which is still a

Jill Jaracz: good

Alison Brown: crowd.

Cont considering how small Cortina is as a city.

Jill Jaracz: The main element of of the ceremony was the Athletes March, which we call the Parade of Nations now the 32 Nation Long parade really started in town and athletes walked down the main drag to go to the stadium where we would walk every day to go to curling.

Alison Brown: That actually makes a lot of sense that they would do that procession, they did that in Paris for the Paralympics. Yes. Where remember they walked down the street so that even people who weren’t in the stadium could cheer for them. And I could see that being very exciting for the athletes.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And also, where they walked, down that main drag across the street above in the air, they had a.

Olympic rings hanging here and there down the street, [00:08:00] like the, the neon pictograms that they had in Corina and also in Milano, over the street for decoration as well. So it was very festive I thought as well. And, The athletes marched down the street into the stadium, and then each delegation lined up on its own coconut matting with the countries lined up on the three sides of the field of play facing the audience.

And then there was just a podium in the center. KK Norski reported in The Guardian that the Parade of Nations was, quote, a modern version. On an almost Hollywood scale of the pomp of ancient Rome, rather than the austerity of ancient Greece. End quote.

Alison Brown: My goodness, that sounds a little shady.

Jill Jaracz: Well, Norky had a thing or two to say about the opening ceremony uniforms as well.

Alison Brown: I like KK Norky.

Jill Jaracz: This is gonna be a very long quote, he said, but why? One had to ask oneself do so many of them have to be dressed like stewards or [00:09:00] hostesses of some continental airlines are like commissionaries. The bigger winter travel agencies might use. The British and their Navy blue outfits looked sober enough as one would expect from an island nation.

The Japanese wearing in gray flannels and blue blazers, the French looked chic as they can do on a special occasion. The men were in blue trousers and navy pullovers, and the women wore white boots, blue trousers, red coats with Brett buttons and Blue Berets. The Austrian in their dove gray overcoats and Anthony Eden type hats looked as if they were on their way to an afternoon session in a coffee house.

The Americans were the most colorful of the lot, and one could not escape the impression that the possibility of being seen on television back home had something to do with it. They wore blue boots and trousers, white duffle coats, and red fur hats. The Russians looked conservative in comparison. They wore black trousers, dark royal blue overcoats with red scarves and brown fur hats.

End [00:10:00] quote.

Alison Brown: he had something to say, you know, some of it doesn’t sound bad. You know, I, until it does, I think a red fur hat sounds lovely, but the tone is a little shady.

Jill Jaracz: I, I see that like nobody likes the French.

Alison Brown: Nobody likes the French.

Jill Jaracz: So if you were watching the ceremonies on tv, the parade of Nations was intercut with the journey of the torch, which was coming down the mountains with the skiers.

Alison Brown: Nice.

Jill Jaracz: And then in the stadium, you knew that the torch was on its way because red, white, and green rockets were launched to signal that the torch was coming down from the mountain.

Alison Brown: And having seen that, that route, that is a dangerous route for that torch to take. It’s some windy switchbacks. It is some twisty roads.

Skiing it down is probably the safest, uh, avenue. For getting that down the [00:11:00] mountain. Right.

Jill Jaracz: So after the athletes marched into the stadium organizing committee, chairman Count Paolo Town de Revelle made a speech and asked Italian President Signor Giovanni GCI to open the games. And then once it was time for, once this declaration had been made, it was time for the torch to enter the stadium and that.

Honor went to speed skater Guido Caroli, who had the honor of lighting the cauldron en route. He tripped over a microphone wire and fell, ugh. Luckily the flame did not go out, nor was cruelly hurt and he climbed up onto the platform where the cauldron was and lit it still. He told reporters, I feel so ashamed.

Alison Brown: Oh, poor guy.

Jill Jaracz: And the cauldron is still there. It’s still on its platform, which we saw And And if you were at Milano Cortina 2026, sadly that was covered up by covered fencing, but you know, it kind of made me [00:12:00] sad for what it must have been like back then where things were more open and now everything is cordoned off and separated by, bag checks and accreditation, uh, standards.

So, uh, yeah, it was probably a little bit more open then. So somewhere. During the ceremony, participants and the crowd heard a brand new Olympic anthem. This was not the anthem that we hear at ceremonies today. What we get today for the Olympic anthem is the original hymn written by Greek composer Spiros Samura, with lyrics by Costus Palamas, which was written for Athens in 1896.

So the IOC after the after 1896, and that one was also used I think in 1906 for the inter. Calculated games. Uh, after that, the IOC went through a few decades of using different music, and in 1954, they had announced a competition for [00:13:00] a new IOC anthem set to the words of the ancient Greek Po Greek poet pindar.

So winning not only got your music played at the games, it also came with a commemorative medal and a $1,000 prize. I was hoping

Alison Brown: there’d be a little cash involved.

Jill Jaracz: There you go. So the competition got 387 entries from 39 countries. Those were judged by a large international panel of composers, conductors, and musicians, including Lennox Berkeley, Neils, Vigo Benson, Nadia Boaler, Ernesto Hoffler, and Aaron Copeland.

Alison Brown: Nice.

Jill Jaracz: Uh, the judges chose Polish Composer, Mekel Spex Hymn Olympic as the winner. And Corina, 1956 was the first Olympic Games where it was played. And now may, you may wonder why we don’t hear this anthem anymore. And that’s because A was not very popular. And B Spick demanded a lot of royalties.

Alison Brown: [00:14:00] His $1,000, not enough.

Jill Jaracz: And at the 55th IOC session in Tokyo in 1958, they played the 1896 Greek version of the hymn, and it was so moving that the membership voted it back in as the Olympic anthem. So there we go. SpaceX, Hy Oly was not the only new music. At the opening ceremony, the athletes marched into a specially commissioned, uh, marched into the stadium with a specially commissioned piece called Olympic Parade by Maestro gi Sheppey Blanc from Torino and Blanc also wrote the Fanfares for the medal ceremonies.

So he is our dut of

Alison Brown: Of 1956.

Jill Jaracz: Yes. So once the cauldron was lit, it was time for the athlete’s. O Oath taken for the first time by a woman, Italian skier, Juliana Nuso, who was a bronze medalist at Oslo, 1952, who was described by the guardians. Norski, your favorite person as young, slim, and bronzed. [00:15:00]

Alison Brown: Bronzed, literally or bronzed?

Figuratively.

Jill Jaracz: No idea. Uh, so after Manso recited the oath, the show was over. That was it. It was a whopping 57 minutes after it started, the Italian president left the stadium, as did the athletes, and we’re done. Time for the games. No fireworks. No

Alison Brown: fireworks. No fireworks. Nos in the middle on Thursday morning?

Jill Jaracz: No. Something They repeated Milano 2026. Really? I mean, I think there were fireworks somewhere, but not where we were. Um, yeah, it was just an amazingly short show. Very, really wasn’t wasn’t a

Alison Brown: show.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah,

Alison Brown: it was just the. The logistic part of it that we always kind of breeze through now.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah.

Alison Brown: And we focus on the show.

There was no show. It was just the Parade of Nations and the Oath and some music and that’s it.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And yeah, the biggest [00:16:00] show element was the Cauldron lighting. So I’m curious where the show comes in. I’m wondering if it was 1960, I can’t remember when we read the, the book. Snowball’s chance about 1960, in Nevada Lake Tahoe area where Disney got involved.

Alison Brown: Right.

Jill Jaracz: So it, looking back to see like what were these ceremonies like in the early days versus today, and how much was it the organizing committee saying, yeah, this is all we need to do.

Alison Brown: Like we don’t need a show, we just need the ceremony. You know, it’s still called the opening ceremony. Those ceremony elements are still in there, but the show has become the focus.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So we are ready to go with competition, which we will get to next month. We’ll be looking at skiing, uh, sources for this, uh, episode. Philip Barker in the International Society of Olympic Historians, [00:17:00] the Guardian, William. Gil Gold’s book, 100 Years of Olympic Music, music, and Musicians of the Modern Olympic Games, 1896 to 1996.

the Guardian and our friend KK Norski, the official report of Carina Deso, 1956 Edia and the Olympic Studies Center.

Alison Brown: Ready

Jill Jaracz: to go. Now we are ready to go. So that’ll do it for this month, uh, next month. Like I said, we’ll be looking at the history making Alpine conis competition and so be sure to tune in for that.

Thank you so much for listening,

Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.