2006 Olympics

The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games and simply known as Turin 2006 or Torino 2006, was a multi-sport winter event that was held in Turin, Piedmont, Italy from 10 to 26 February 2006. This was the second time Italy had hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo. Italy also hosted the Summer Olympics in Rome in 1960. Turin was selected as host city for the Olympics in June 1999. The official motto of the XX Olympic Winter Games was: "Passion lives here." The official logo displays the stylised profile of the Mole Antonelliana building, made in crystals of white and blue ice, signifying the snow and the stars. The crystal network was also meant to reflect the new technology climate, and the Olympic spirit of the world. Neve, a female snowball, became the Games ' Olympic mascots, and Gliz, a male ice cube. Italy will host the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo twenty years after those games. On 19 June 1999, Turin was announced as host of the Olympics at the 109th IOC Meeting in Seoul, South Korea. It came after the IOC's adopted revised voting procedures at the 108th Extraordinary IOC Session in the aftermath of the 1998 and 2002 controversy surrounding the Winter Olympic votes. The Oxford Olympics Report placed the development budget of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics at US$ 4.4 billion in 2015-dollars and the actual spending reached 80%. It mainly includes sport-related expenditures, i.e. administrative costs borne by the organising committee for the purposes of hosting the Games, e.g. spending on transportation, transport, personnel, administration, accommodation, ceremonies and medical services, and direct construction costs borne by the host city and government or private donors to build, e.g. competition stadiums; Indirect building costs for bridge, rail or airport infrastructure, hotel upgrades or other Games ready commercial developments are not included, nor are they directly related to the Games. The budget and expense overrun for Torino 2006 are equal to the loss of US$ 2.5 billion and a cost overrun of 13 per cent for Vancouver 2010, and the expense of US$ 51 billion and a cost overrun of 289 per cent for Sochi 2014, the latter being the most expensive Olympics to date. The overall cost of Winter Games since 1960 is US$ 3.1 billion, and the gross cost reduction is 142 per cent. Winter Olympics 2006 held 84 medal events, including 15 disciplines, in seven sports. Stefania Belmondo, 10-time Olympic medalist in cross-country skiing, lit the Olympic Flame on 10 February at the opening ceremonies. Prior to that, the festival had honoured the best of Italy and Sport with a section celebrating the Alps. The opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin were created and produced by K-events of the FilmMaster Company. Product production Alfredo Accatino, Executive Producer Marco Balich, Art Direction Lida Castelli. Monica Maimone of Studio Festi directed the section From the Renaissance to the Baroque, part of the opening ceremonies Olympic games were conducted mainly in Turin but other activities took place in outlying mountain areas for obvious purposes. A historically unprecedented 80 National Olympic Committees entered athletes at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. At the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, that was a two-plus increase from the 78. The number in parentheses indicates how many NOC attendees have applied. This was their first visit to Albania, to Ethiopia and Madagascar. This was the first appearance in the Winter Olympics for Serbia and Montenegro, coming after their change of name in 2003 and the independence vote in May.