20th Olympic Winter Games: Torino 2006

There will be a majestic event:
17 days of competitions: from 10 to 26 February 2006
15 disciplines: biathlon, bobsleigh, nordic combined, curling, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating, ski jumping, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, short-track, skeleton, luge, snowboard
7 Competition Sites: Torino, Bardonecchia, Cesana, Pinerolo, Pragelato, Sauze d'Oulx, Sestriere
3 Olympic Villages: Torino, Bardonecchia and Sestriere
84 titles at stake
85 National Olympic Committees
2,500 athletes
2,500 coaches and national team officials
2,300 representatives of the IOC, National Olympic Committees and Federations
650 judges and referees
10,000 media
6,000 guests of sponsors
1 million spectators
these are the figures of XX Olimpic Winter Games that Torino is proud to host.

History of Olympic Winter Games:
In 1896, the first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, their glorious country of origin. The first winter sport was included in 1908: figure skating. Later, Ice Hockey was added to the competition programme in 1920.
The First Olympic Winter Games were staged in Chamonix, France, in 1924. 294 athletes from 16 nations took part in the events. For the next 68 years, the Winter Games were held the same year as the Summer Games.
A new tradition began in 1994 with the Winter Games held in Lillehammer: the Winter Olympics are still held every four years, but in a different year from the Summer Games.

Torino 2006 Mascots:
Neve and Gliz are the two official Torino 2006 mascots. They are born from a snowball and an ice cube. Still, they are affectionate and warm, animated by an all-Italian passion. She has rounded forms, inspired by the snow and dressed in red; he wears blue, with squarer lines which are more typical of ice.
And they both smile enthusiastically, conveying joy, a positive outlook and a sunny approach. But above all they are two natural elements without which there would be no Winter Games: snow and ice.
Their role is to present the XX Olympic Winter Games, conveying the universal Olympic values and the spirit of Italy.
Neve: a synthetic name, simple, with a soft and elegant sound and very easy to memorise. Neve immediately recalls the bond of the mascot with one of the two natural elements that are fundamental for the practice of winter sports, and she is the ideal friend to play with under the sign of respect, loyalty and friendship, some of the highest expressions of the Olympic spirit.
Gliz: A name whose characteristics complement Neve. It expresses energy, passion, innovation entertainment. Gliz brings to mind the names of superheroes of comic strips, cartoons or childrens’ games. Gliz has a fresh, compact, sharp-edged sound: ideal characteristic to synthesise in a single word the squared shapes of the mascot.
Neve and Gliz were born from the pencil of Portuguese designer Pedro Albuquerque, who won the international competition organised by TOROC. The two characters have an innovative design, which was created to be a fundamental component of the image of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games. Starting today, Neve and Gliz will feature in all Torino 2006 communications and official products (dolls, toys, apparel, etc.), and will be physically present at all main events of the Games and at the venues.

The Olympic Cauldron of Torino 2006
One of the most important historical symbols of the Olympic framework, the role of the Cauldron is to protect and display the Olympic Flame during the Olympic Games. Since 1928 (the year when it was formally introduced), it has marked the beginning and the end of the Olympic celebrations and, in a perfect balance of symbol, design and function, it also allows the Host Country to express the culture, the spirit and the history of an entire nation.
The next steps of The Olympic Cauldron'll be:
• L’Aquila 9 gennaio 2006
• Ancona 10 gennaio 2006
• Bologna 13 gennaio 2006
• Venezia 17 gennaio 2006
• Trieste 18 gennaio 2006
• Trento 23 gennaio 2006
• Bolzano 24 gennaio 2006
• Milano 29 gennaio 2006
• Aosta 7 febbraio 2006
• Torino 9-10 febbraio 2006

Italyart, the Torino 2006 Cultural Olympiads
Cultural Olympiads, will communicate the values and emotions of sport through various art forms – drama, dance, art, literature and cinema – which express the same values and the same emotions as the sports event, embarking on an extraordinary new adventure which links two worlds that are traditionally far apart. It is a long narrative, a new creative relationship that combines movement and thought: it is the body that speaks in sport, and it is the body that speaks in this great event. Italyart, the Torino 2006 Cultural Olympiads, have a significant, unique message: a great cultural event that represents the national and local artistic scene. But the event is also closely linked to the identity of the city and the mountains, and it presents this territory to the world, with a language and a clear image of its own. It is a cultural event that must be seen as both local and global at one and the same time; contrasting the territorial identity, which is strong, distinct and “productive”, with the global dimension of the Olympics. It is obviously an event linked to the Olympics and to snow and ice sports, which focuses in particular on the body and its language, especially in some fields, such as dance, but also drama and the visual arts. What better occasion could there be than the Olympics to present a return to the expressiveness of the body, in this age of technological global communications? These are the underlying principles of the entire cultural programme, which is an “Olympic” programme because it is an integral part of the Games, a single image to present to the world. It starts in November, with a preview of “Dance Break”, experiments and dance performances in the Olympic mountains, will use dance as an ironic distortion of the celebration of the body that is inherent in the Olympics; attention in the city is focused on the main creation of the Piedmontese capital, the car, which will be celebrated throughout the Games as the element that changes national customs. “The Snow Show” in Sestriere will bring us to the peak of the Cultural Olympiads, with an exhibition of contemporary environmental art and architecture based on the element of water, which is transformed into snow and ice, as if entering into symbiosis with the Olympic atmosphere of the Winter Games. This is followed by great international events: contemporary art in town with T1 – TorinoTriennale Tremusei, Luci d’Artista, ManifesTO and Metropolis; installations in spectacular architectural settings, like “The Five Rings” at the Fort of Exilles and Painting Below Freezing at Fenestrelle; but also classical art, the great cultural heritage of Italy and the whole world, like the exhibition “Eroi ed Atleti”, organised by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which examines how the aesthetic ideal has been presented in the depiction of heroes and athletes from Olympia to Rome to Torino 2006, and the exhibition “Landscape and scenery from Poussin to Canaletto” dedicated to landscape painting in the 17th and 18th centuries. But also, in a city that is the home to an important Egyptian Museum, second only to the one in Cairo, there will be exhibitions and events about ancient Egypt and its traditions, such as the collection of statues in Dante Ferretti’s spectacular new presentation. Going on to drama and dance, the programme includes two outstanding events, created specifically for the Cultural Olympiads: “Domani” directed by Luca Ronconi, and “Il Colore Bianco” from the director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti. Another unmissable event is the world première of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in a production by Giancarlo Cobelli. On the music front, two stars of the world opera scene – Roberto Alagna and Svetla Vassileva – will perform La Bohème in the famous production by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Aldo Terlizzi, and Manon Lescaut, directed by first-time director Jean Reno. There will also be an important cycle of Beethoven concerts with Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth with Alexander Lonquich, and numerous other initiatives. Torino underlines that it was the first capital of the Italian cinema industry, and presents an ample review of Twenty Classic Films from the Italian cinema, and the Cabiria Project, the most complete, philological restoration of this masterpiece of Italian silent cinema. In the literary field, the Grinzane Prize will organise five literary dinners, linked to stories and recipes from the mountains. But there will also be lectures, meetings and debates linked to sport, to the Olympics, to the history of Torino and its inhabitants, to the Torino of the past, to the changing city of today, and to the Torino of the future.

Venues and programm of competitions
Torino's venues:
- Oval Lingotto, by via Passo Buole, Speed Skating (from 11 to 22 February, tickets 40,00 - 95,00 euro);
- Palasport Olimpico, Santa Rita district, Ice Hockey (from 11 to 16 February, tickets 20,00 - 80,00 euro)
- Palavela, near corso Unità d'Italia: Short Track (12 - 15 and 18 February, tickets 40,00 to 90,00 euro) and Figure Skating (from 11 to 20 February, tickets 70,00 - 300,00 euro);
- Torino Esposizioni, in corso Massimo d'Azeglio: Ice Hockey (from 11 al 16 February, tickets 20,00 - 80,00 euro)
Other competitions in:
- Bardonecchia: Snowboard ("Half Pipe" 12 and 13 February; "Cross" 16 and 17 February, "Slalom" 22 and 23 February, tickets 35,00 -90,00 euro)
- Cesana Pariol: Luge (from 11 to 15 February, tickets 25,00 - 50,00 euro);
Skeleton(on 16 and 17 February, tickets 35,00 - 50,00 euro) and Male Bobsleigh (18 and 19 February, tickets 25,00 - 50,00 euro) and Female Bobsleigh 1st e 2nd manche(on Februray 20, tickets 25,00 - 40,00 euro);
- San Sicario Fraiteve: Female Downhill (on 15 February, tickets 30,00 - 110,00 euro), Female Combined Competition (on February 17, tickets 25,00 - 100,00 euro), female Super-G (on February 19, tickets 30,00 - 110,00 euro)
- Cesana San Sicario, Biathlon (from 11 to 25, tickets 20,00 - 60,00 euro)
- Pinerolo, Palaghiaccio: Curling (13, 14, 15 and 16 February, tickets 20,00 to 40,00 euro)
- Pragelato: Nordic Combined and Ski Jumping (from 11 to 21 February, tickets 35,00 - 170,00 euro)
- Pragelato Plan: Nordic Combined (11, 15 and 21 February, tickets 60,00 - 90,00 euro), Cross-Country interval start (18 and 19 February, tickets 30,00 - 60,00 euro), Cross-Country (female races on 16 February and male ones on 17 February, tickets 20,00 - 60,00 euro), Cross-Country Sprint (14 and 22 February, tickets 30,00 - 70,00 euro), Nordic Combined (February 11, 15 and 21, tickets 60,00 - 90,00 euro)
- Sauze d'Oulx Jouvenceaux: Freestyle (from 11 to 23 February, tickets 30,00 to 90,00 euro)
- Sestriere Borgata: Male Downhill (on February 12, tickets 25,00 - 110,00 euro), Male Combinated and Slalom(on February 14 , tickets 25,00 - 110,00 euro ) and Male Super-G (on February 18, tickets 25,00 - 110,00 euro)
- Colle di Sestriere:Combinata (male one on 14 February and female one on 17 february, tickets 25,00 - 110,00 euro), Slalom (male race on 22 and female race on 25 February, tickets 30,00 - 110,00 euro ) and Giant Slalom (male race on 20 and female race on 24 february, tickets 30,00 - 110,00 euro).