We’re going back to the Cortina 1956 Winter Olympics and the last Olympic speed skating competition on natural ice. Lake Misurina proved to be a fantastic venue as records fell by the dozens over the four races of the speed skating competition. We’ve got all the details, including the debut of the Soviet Union’s fast skaters, a Norwegian comeback, and some Scandinavians who managed to make it onto the podium.
As mentioned on the show, there’s a charming documentary called My Name Is McNamara, about American Pat McNamara, who competed in his second Olympics at Cortina.
Sources
Anderson, Mike. “Lake near Cortina was the last natural Olympic ice rink.” KSL.com. Feb 20, 2026. Accessed July 6, 2026. https://www.ksl.com/article/51451583/lake-near-cortina-was-the-last-natural-olympic-ice-rink
Laguerre, Andre. “Russia Takes Over.” Sports Illustrated. Feb. 6, 1956.
NBC/Peacock. U.S. Speed Skating Olympic Trials. January 2026.
Official Report of Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956. https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll8/id/12644/rec/25. Accessed May 12, 2026.
Olympedia. Various pages. Accessed July 5, 2026.
- https://www.olympedia.org/editions/35/sports/SSK
- https://www.olympedia.org/editions/36/sports/SSK
- https://www.olympedia.org/results/1001
- https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/86236
- https://www.olympedia.org/results/1002
- https://www.olympedia.org/results/1003
- https://www.olympedia.org/results/1004
Olympics.com. “‘Greyhound of the ice’ Grishin sprints to glory.” Jan. 29, 1956. Accessed July 6, 2026. https://www.olympics.com/en/news/greyhound-of-the-ice-grishin-sprints-to-glory
United States Olympic Committee. United States 1956 Olympic Book: Quadrennial Report. Asa S. Bushnell and Arthur G. Lentz, editors. New Haven, CT: The Walker-Rackliff Co. 1957.
Waxman, Olivia B. “The Most Memorable Moments of the Last Winter Olympics in Cortina.” Time. Feb. 4, 2026. Accessed July 6, 2026. https://time.com/7345680/winter-olympics-cortina-history/
Photo: Wikimedia Commons via Picryl
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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.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-Speed Skating
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another history episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. All year long, we are exploring the games of Cortina 1956, as this is the 70th anniversary of those games, and we just had a Winter Games in Milano-Cortina again. So it’s nice to go back and revisit these.
I am your host, Jill Jaracz, along with my lovely co-host, Alison [00:00:30] Brown. Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison Brown: Buongiorno.
Jill Jaracz: Buongiorno.
Alison Brown: Come on, get back into your Italian. You can do it. It’s so funny, ’cause I was actually trying to think of, of what French I remembered, and it’s gone. It is gone. Oh. So the five words I know in Italian, I’m hoping to hang onto.
Jill Jaracz: [00:01:00] Luckily, like music uses a lot of Italian, food-
Alison Brown: I was
gonna
Jill Jaracz: say- … uses a lot of Italian …
Alison Brown: kitchen Italian is pretty easy.
Jill Jaracz: maybe we’ll have a quiz at the end of this.
Alison Brown: No, no, no. I will fail so miserably. But you know what’s not gonna fail is this story. I’m excited.
The speed skating venue at Cortina 1956
Jill Jaracz: All right, so we are talking speed skating today.
Now many Olympics, as we know, have an event or two that are held far away from the main host [00:01:30] city, much like Tahiti and Paris 2024. speed skating was the Tahiti of Cortina 1956. It was held outdoors on Lake Misurina, a good 13 kilometers from Cortina.
Alison Brown: But at the time when the Olym- especially the Winter Olympics was so tiny, being 13 kilometers away is a lifetime.
Jill Jaracz: It, it really is, and the International Skating Union [00:02:00] was not thrilled about being this far away from all the other Olympic action, but this is the venue they ended up with. So according to my favorite document, the Cortina 1956 official report, Lake Misurina is known as, quote, “The pearl of the Dolomites,” end quote.
Alison Brown: And pearls are kind of the official unofficial jewel of the Dolomites.
Jill Jaracz: Are they really?
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: I did not know this.
Alison Brown: Yes. [00:02:30] That pearl, that, that Milan is a sapphire and the Dolomites are pearls.
Jill Jaracz: Well. Interesting. I did not know. Now might break out the pearls next time we have an episode. But it, it really does sound beautiful.
So this alpine lake is surrounded by mountains and woods, and the mountains help break the wind, and being at 1,750 meters in altitude, the ice was very, very [00:03:00] fast.
Alison Brown: Excellent.
Jill Jaracz: So the lake had four hotels, two of which were reserved for athletes and officials. Athletes and coaches were assigned to the Grand Hotel delle Alpi, which games official and, uh, games officials were at the Grand Hotel Misurina.
And I don’t know what the athlete hotel was really like, but apparently the location was not satisfactory to the US team because the US said, “No, we would like to be moved to the Grand Hotel Misurina because that is [00:03:30] across the street from the ice rink.” And they got their, they, they got there. They figured it out.
Lake Misurina was known for making smooth ice, and to make sure that there were no cracks in the racing surface, track designer Gosta Nilsson from Sweden created an island for the track. So ice technicians cut a two-meter wide lane through the ice all around the track so it was separate from everything else.
Wow. that [00:04:00] two-meter swath was like a moat, and this had to be cut fresh every day.
Alison Brown: That’s demanding. That’s demanding of a perfect surface.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Well, there, there’s only four races, so days aren’t… You know, you have practice days and race days, so not a ton. They also put, uh, six inches of snow on the natural ice and poured spring water on the snow, which then formed a layer of white ice.
And to keep the track smooth, the ice masters put hot [00:04:30] water in a giant wooden barrel and set the barrel horizontally on sled runners. Like, w- like it’s early day Zambonis.
Alison Brown: So you just have this barrel on its side-
Jill Jaracz: Yes …
Alison Brown: rolling along.
Jill Jaracz: No, they put it on a sled. So then they’d have the barrel and they’d, they’d drip the water out to melt- Oh, okay
the surface, and then they had smoothers to smooth it out. So it was really, really smooth. I mean, this is really, like, early Zamboni. [00:05:00] Yeah. That’s not elec- that’s not mechanical So, uh, thanks to the thickness of the ice and the constant temperature underneath it, the surface maintained consistent speeds throughout the duration of the games, and it was fast.
Taking Pierre de Coubertin’s philosophy to heart
Every race set a new Olympic record. Some set or tied world records, and there were a total of 39 new national records set.
Alison Brown: They were busy up there in Misurina.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, and yeah, [00:05:30] put this in perspective, every country participating in speed skating got at least one new national record.
Alison Brown: Well, that’s what, you know, we always say you wanna see the best of the best at the Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Well, uh, it’s funny that you say that because the ISU- Oh, no … took Pierre de Coubertin’s philosophy to heart, the to participate is more important than to win. So the requirements to enter the Olympics were actually lower than they were to get into the world championships.[00:06:00]
So you weren’t necessarily competing with the best of the best, you were competing at the Olympics. Just has good PR, I guess
Alison Brown: ISU causing trouble even 50, 60 years ago.
Jill Jaracz: this event, just four distances. Only men competed. The Soviet Union did ask to have women’s events added to the program, because according to Olympia, the Soviet women’s team had come onto the international s- scene earlier than the Soviet men’s team.
However, organizers said, “No, no, no, [00:06:30] just men. Women have to wait four more years to compete in speed skating at the Olympics.” at Milano Cortina 2026, there were seven men’s speed skating events. Cortina just four, the 500, 1500, 5,000, and 10,000. Competition kicked off with the 500 meter, and competition days alternated between sprint and long distance.
The 500m
So for simplicity’s sake, we’re gonna go distance order. So let’s start with the 500 meter. [00:07:00] Although they were new to the Winter Olympics, the Soviet Union was prepared to dominate in speed skating, which had been the purview of the US and of Norway in previous Winter Games. So those two countries had won 18 of the Winter Olympics’ 24 speed skating medals.
But the Soviets had invested in its athletes. Sports Illustrated asked US speed skating coach Del Lamb about what made the Soviets good, and he responded, quote, “Money, which makes it po- [00:07:30] possible for them to work at it,” end quote. rumors persisted that the Soviet government put $35 million into its athlete program.
Alison Brown: Wow. That-
Jill Jaracz: Yeah,
Alison Brown: back then … that would be a lot of money now. Yes. Never mind all those years ago.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. The rumors. The Soviets had the favorites in the 500 meter, espec- especially Evgeni Grishin, who had won gold at the last two European championships and at the ’54 World Championships.
His [00:08:00] main rival was teammate Yuri Sergeev, who held the world record of 40.8 seconds for about a year until Grishin broke it by .6 seconds in a pre-Olympic race at Lake Misurina six days before the Olympics. By luck of the draw, Grishin competed in the very first pair with British skater Jonnie Cronchie.
The weather was ideal. Clear sky, moderate north wind, temps just above freezing, and excellent [00:08:30] hard ice, which Grishin, starting in the outside lane, would fly around, earning his nickname, quote, “The Greyhound of the Ice.”
Grishan tied his world record of 40.2 seconds. Cronchy finished 2.7 seconds behind Grishan
Alison Brown: Lifetime
Jill Jaracz: But it was a British record
Alison Brown: That tells you how fast that Soviet was going.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Uh, other favorite, Yuri Sergeev, was in the next pair, also starting on the outside. [00:09:00] He did not fare as well, finished with a time of 41.1. That put him in silver medal position for the time being, but there were still 22 pairs to go In pair number six, Alv Gjestevang from Norway, who was skating in his first international competition, almost fell Let’s
Alison Brown: debut at the Olympics.
Why not?
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. Well, you know, the, those ISU folks relaxing the rules. he almost fell, but he kept it together [00:09:30] enough to finish ahead of Sergeev by .1 seconds. No one got close to Grishin’s time until pair 15, which was when another Soviet, Rafael Gratch, paired up with American Kenneth Henry, the defending Olympic champion.
Henry came into the games with a sore throat, but the medical team got him back in working order to get to the start line. Henry’s on the inner, Gratch is on the outside. When they crossed the finish line, Gratch was the only other skater to [00:10:00] break the 41-second barrier, finishing with a time of 40.8. Henry finished with a time of 42.8, which was better than his gold medal-winning skate from four years prior, but it was only good enough for a tie for 17th place here.
Alison Brown: Wow. That’s how fast this ice is.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes. Pair 15 decided the podium. Spectators sat through nine more pairs that produced some of the slowest times of the competition. and this [00:10:30] happens throughout all of four races, where, like, everyone who’s fast goes first, and then you gotta sit there and watch these s- watch these slower skaters compete, and they get to compete, but it’s, it, the drama isn’t there.
And I couldn’t figure out when we started shifting towards The faster skaters at the end Yeah. Yes, exactly. But, they tended to be at the front here. So, in toll, 11 national records would go down in this distance, and 24 out of 47 [00:11:00] skaters would tie or beat what was the Olympic record going into these games.
So final results, gold went to Evgeny Grishin from the Soviet Union. He tied the world record. Silver went to Rafael Gratch from the U- Soviet Union, and bronze went to Alv Gjestevang from Norway. The cauldron lighter, Guido Caroli, who fell, remember, when he was trying to light the cauldron, he was skating in his third games.
He finished 33rd. [00:11:30] So I wanted to compare the times here to 2026 times. So the world record tying time was 40.2. Gold in 2026 was 33.77.
Alison Brown: Wow. That’s a, that is a huge difference
Jill Jaracz: Right. So 70 years later, that’s, that’s what we’re talking about.
The 1500m
Moving on to the 1,500 meter. So in the 1,500, Yevgeny, Greyhound of the Ice, Krishen, had been the [00:12:00] world record holder.
But fellow Soviet Yuri Mikhailov, Mikhailov had broken it at another pre-Olympics meet in Davos, and the fastest time ever was now 2:09.1. Competition is full of heavy hitters from the l- the last two years, including reigning bronze medalist Roald Aas. Reigning gold medalist Halvard Andersen of Norway is not on the list because he’s only gonna compete at the [00:12:30] distance events.
so it was a little chillier for this race. Temperatures ranged from minus two to minus three Celsius throughout the afternoon, and the official report says the weather conditions and state of the ice were dull with snow, moderate north wind, ice good. Ice
Alison Brown: good.
Jill Jaracz: And it was good from the very beginning of competition.
Pair one included Finland’s Toivo Salonen, who in his second [00:13:00] Olympics placed fifth in the 500. He set the tone early with a 2:09.4, three-tenths off of the world record. There wasn’t another skater who broke 2:10 until the ninth pair when Juhani Järvinen got a 2:09.7, three-tenths off of the lead. But that time wouldn’t even be good enough for the podium because we’re still waiting for the Soviets to hit the ice Yevgeny Grishin, Greyhound of the ice, [00:13:30] was in pair 11, again starting on the outside.
He got a slow start compared to Salonen, but as the race went on, he started flying around the track, finishing in 2:08.06, new world record time. Grishin now is in control of first place, almost a full second ahead of Salonen. And, uh, Salonen’s compatriot was in the next pair, Yuri Mikhailov, who fell during the 500 meters and did not finish for that race.
He [00:14:00] started on the inside lane, got off to a slightly slower start, hitting the first split time .1 second off the lead. He picked up the pace and his second split he was ahead by four, .4 seconds. At the third split, he had slowed down a little bit, couldn’t maintain the pace. Crossed the finish line with a time of 2:08.6, tying Grishin and setting a world record.
So nobody else came close to beating the [00:14:30] Soviets. two gold medals awarded for this race to the Soviet Union, Yevgeny Grishin and Yuri Mikhailov, both with world records, and then bronze went to Toivo Salonen from Finland. So comparatively, that world record time of 2:08.6 would’ve been far behind last place at Milano Cortina.
Alison Brown: Which you
Jill Jaracz: expect. Gold medal… Yeah. Gold medal time, which was an Olympic record in 2026, was [00:15:00] 1:41.98. Last place was 1:48.99. That’s a- And this is 2:08.
Alison Brown: That’s a lifetime of change, but, you know, over this span of time, that makes sense. I mean, there are no clap skates in Milan-
Jill Jaracz: No.
Alison Brown: Yes … uh, ’56. Yes. Or rather in Cortina ‘
Jill Jaracz: 56.
E- exactly, so we are talking definite- technology really changed what skaters could do speed-wise. so now we’re leaving the sprints. We’re gonna [00:15:30] go to the distances. That means Yevgeny Grishin is done. He leaves Cortina with double gold. He’ll repeat the double gold in 1960, and repeat the shared gold in the 1500 meter.
At 1964, he’d tie for silver in the 500, get 11th in the 1500. At 1968, which was his fourth and final games, he would get fourth in the 500 meter, just .1 off the podium. And that was the, for Yuri Mikhailov, that was the [00:16:00] last race and Olympic career for him.
The 5000m
So let’s move on to the longer distances. 5,000 meters was held on a partially cloudy Sunday with a light north wind, but it was cold, minus seven degrees Celsius at the start of the race.
Temps rose to minus one by the end. However, excellent ice, and the skaters were ready to go. The fields included defending champion Hjalmar Andersen from Norway, [00:16:30] who went three for three in gold medals at Oslo 1952, retired, and then decided to make a comeback midway through this Olympic cycle.
And we talked about this track being fast, but in, in 1952, Andersen had set an Olympic record of 8:10.6. That time got he- equaled here in Cortina by the 17th place finisher
Alison Brown: Yeah, they’re not playing around in Cortina
Jill Jaracz: No. [00:17:00] the Olympic record got obliterated on the very first pair in the 5,000, but that skater finished ninth.
So, uh, even though we have the Olympic champion as part of the field, he’s almost 33 olds, years old by the- these games. He didn’t go until the 11th pair, which meant he had plenty of time to gauge the field. but also keep in mind he won his gold medal in an, in an Olympics without Soviet Union being there, [00:17:30] and once again, the Soviets came to play.
So the fourth pair is American Pat McNamara starting on the outside against the Soviet Boris Shilkov on the inside. McNamara finished with a time of 8:10.6, which equaled the gold medal time in 1952. But again, that’s nowhere near gonna be good enough for anything. Shilkov bounded off the line, posted the fastest 1,000 meter split time.
He finished with a time of [00:18:00] 7:48.7, 22 seconds faster than McNamara. 12 seconds faster than the current leader.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: His time was only the second fastest ever. So needless to say, no one is coming close to Shilkov this day. , the difference between silver and gold was eight seconds. Difference between silver and bronze was .8 seconds. And the difference between the 1952 gold medalist and the 1956 gold [00:18:30] medalist was almost 18 seconds.
Alison Brown: Now, that’s kind of, uh, you don’t see that in a, a four-year span. I mean, it really- Yeah
speaks to how fast this ice is and the, the altitude making such a difference.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And w- I’m sure the Soviet training was also different and, invested in at this time. So they, they had probably a little more time to train. Uh, so gold goes to Boris Shilkov from the Soviet Union with an Olympic record.
[00:19:00] Silver goes to Sigvard Eriksson from Sweden. He is in his second Olympics. He started in the eighth pair. He snuck in for silver. And then bronze went to Oleg Goncharenko from the Soviet Union. He was in the sixth pair. So Anderson, the reigning gold medis- medalist, finishes 11th. you might think that age may have been a factor and slowed him down a little, but he beat his 1952 time by four seconds.
Alison Brown: It was just so much faster
Jill Jaracz: So, [00:19:30] gold medal time 7:48.7 comparing this to, 2026. There was a new Olympic record time of 6:03.95 So this was Schilkov’s only Olympics. He eventually goes on to coach speed skating and coaches other Olympians as well. I did mention Pat McNamara from the USA. This was his second Olympics.
He finished in the middle of the pack. But there is a, a short 10-minute documentary about him online called My Name is [00:20:00] McNamara, which is kind of a fun watch ’cause he’s in it and one of his buddies is in it, and you see some speed skating stuff from back in the day. So that’s, that’s very cool. I will link to it in the show notes.
The 10,000m
So the final race for speed skating is a 10,000, and the weather is cloudy with some fog banks, slight wind from the south, stable temperatures throughout the event, so it’s, minus eight to minus seven degrees Celsius.
Good ice, so we are going to be in for a show. Once again, defending gold [00:20:30] medalist and holder of both the Olympic record and world record, Hjalmar Andersen is part of the field. But due to his short retirement and comeback, uh, during the cycle, he was not the favorite to win. That honor went to Sigvard Eriksson, the silver medalist from the last race, but he wasn’t on until the 10th pair, and there were plenty of skaters like the Soviets in the hunt.
So speaking of Soviets, Oleg Goncharenko, the 5,000-meter bronze medalist, [00:21:00] was one of the early favorites to hit the track. He delivered by taking nearly three seconds off the Olympic record. Time is 16:42.3. He did not have long to enjoy that accomplishment because it’s just like a broken record here. Four pairs later, Norwegian Knut Johannesen skated most of the race under world record pace, but he slowed down at the end.
Still, he bested, Goncharenko’s time by over five [00:21:30] seconds. Now he’s in the lead. Amazingly, he could not hold onto the Olympic record either because three pairs later, along comes Eriksson, the Swede. Eriksson, trailed Johannesen’s time at the first split, but he soon pulled even and then bettered him, snatching the Olympic record, and the top spot.
What about defending gold medalist Andersen? He starts in 14th pair, and needless to say, he was immediately off the leader’s pace. He did win his [00:22:00] pair, but he ended up in sixth place. So nobody else comes close to the medals, and our final podium was going to be three people who broke the Olympic record.
Gold, Sigvard Eriksson from Sweden, silver, Knut Johannesen from Norway, and bronze to Oleg Goncharenko from U- Soviet Union. Uh, so comparing to Milano Cortina 2026, the gold medal time was [00:22:30] 16:35.9, and in, 2026, the gold medal was 12:33.43. So we’re talking, eh, four minutes faster?
Alison Brown: I can believe it.
Jill Jaracz: this was not the Olympic record though. That’s 12:30.74.
Alison Brown: Something you haven’t said this whole story is the Netherlands. So I wonder- No … when- They
Jill Jaracz: just were not a factor.
Alison Brown: They just didn’t, n- yeah, they were not the speed, the dominant speed skating country [00:23:00] at that point. I wonder when that comes to be.
Jill Jaracz: That’s a very good question. We’re gonna have to put that in the hopper. That might be my Substack article. There we go. Thank you. I will look into that for Substack. So get our Substack. You can go to flamealivepod.com and scroll to the bottom, or we are
Alison Brown: it’s flamealivepod.substack.com
Jill Jaracz: Okay, great. So you can sign up there as well. Great stories every week and stuff you did [00:23:30] not know about. So, this was, gold medalist Eriksson’s last games. Johannesen went to the next two Olympics. He got four more gold medals, including gold and bronze in this particular event.
Goncharenko went to 1960 and c- just competed in the f- 5,000 there, finishing sixth.
The ISU’s final thoughts on Lake Misurina
So the, overall, the International Skating Union came around to the idea of Lake Mizzurina as a speed skating rink, [00:24:00] in part to the amazing organization and the results it produced. In fact, James Cook, the president of the ISU, wrote in the official report that he hoped the lake would be used for future international speed skating races.
Quote, “Most of all, we hope, however, that the miraculous track on the Lake of Mizzurina will not be relegated to history and become a second Vineta.” end quote. And the report editor kindly noted that this referred to the legend of [00:24:30] the rich and famous town of Vineta, which for its sins and evil proceedings was doomed to sink down to the bottom of the Baltic Sea, from where it may emerge only once a hundred years to seek release from the spell.
Alison Brown: So it’s like Brigadoon.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. The Baltic Brigadoon, I guess. There’s, I, I’ve learned so much about culture from this official report Pretty [00:25:00] amazing. So however great this rink was, this was the last games to be held on a natural lake. In 1960, artificial ice was used for the first time. one other little 2026 connection I wanted to talk about.
At the, uh, US speed skating trials in Wisconsin, NBC/Peacock showed 94-year-old Gene Sandvig in the audience. He had competed in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters at Cortina [00:25:30] 1956. He was there to watch his 26-year-old granddaughter, Ilsa Shobe, compete. Ilsa didn’t, she did not make the team, but she was his first grandchild to compete for an Olympic berth, and her mom, Susan Sandvig Shobe, was head official of the trials
Alison Brown: Nice connection.
Sources
Jill Jaracz: Uh, so sources here, we have ksl.com, Sports Illustrated, NBC Peacock, the official report of Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956, various pages [00:26:00] from Olympia, olympics.com, the U.S. Olympic Committee, And Time Magazine. So there you have it, speed skating at Cortina.
Alison Brown: Now do you wa- I wanna go see this lake.
I’m disappointed we didn’t know- … to go look for the lake in 13 kilometers. I wonder if we passed the lake in some of our travels.
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know. I, I think it might’ve been like north- Mm-hmm … of Cortina, Yeah, it, it does sound lovely. I mean, I wish, I [00:26:30] wish Cortina had not been so expensive or we had been able to figure out-
Alison Brown: Mm
Jill Jaracz: better lodging existence in a way, although I did like being able to go see sled hockey too.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: Italy’s got too much, too much to-
Alison Brown: Too much to see …
Jill Jaracz: to ex- That’s right. Ex- That’s right. So we have just a couple of sports left in our year.
Alison Brown: Unbelievable.
And only, only a couple more months that you get to sit with that official report.
Jill Jaracz: I know, which might be a good thing. [00:27:00] You never know. ‘Cause I’m just gonna be going, “Bring back paper tickets.”
Cortino, host the games again. You can do it.
Alison Brown: You don’t need Milan.
Jill Jaracz: No, not at all. All right, friends, that’s gonna do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Alison Brown: And until next time, keep the flame alive.[00:27:30]
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