How Global Tensions Defined the 1956 Cortina Olympics

Organizers of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, knew they’d be preparing for two historic firsts. The Games would not only be the first to feature live television coverage, they would also be the first Winter Olympics to include the Soviet Union (USSR). As the Cold War intensified—a simmering struggle for global influence between the U.S., its allies and the Soviet bloc—the convergence of these events would help shape the narrative around international rivalries for decades to come.

The Olympics were consistently used as a propaganda opportunity throughout the Cold War, says Erin Redihan, author of The Olympics and the Cold War, 1948–1968: Sport as Battleground in the U.S.–Soviet Rivalry. “We often see how whenever there are American-Soviet interactions, that’s an opportunity to play up these Cold War dynamics.”

The nature and format of Olympic coverage also influenced how these narratives were shaped. Cortina’s location in Italy’s alpine Ampezzo Valley and the lack of broadcast infrastructure in the region required extensive work. New cable lines had to be laid through the Dolomites to accommodate radio and television transmissions. These signals were then broadcast through Padua, the closest major city. 

Although European viewers had the opportunity to watch the Games live, the realities of early television broadcasting meant that Olympic coverage in 1950s America was highly selective. Once the Games were broadcast from Padua, the tapes of raw footage were flown overnight to New York, where the three national broadcast networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—were headquartered.

Highlights from the Olympics would then air as part of daily news broadcasts. “That means there are a lot of opportunities to edit what is shown—especially since you’ve got a limited time block of around three and nine minutes for all of the coverage,” Redihan explains. “So you aren’t going to show American failures at the Games. You are going to show moments where we are doing well."

When Russia announced in February 1955 that it would be participating in the Cortina Olympics the following year, it caused an instant stir in the world of sports. It would be the first time the nation would participate in the Winter Games as a communist state. 

The USSR made its Olympic debut four years earlier at the 1952 Summer Olympics to great success, coming home with 71 medals—second only to the 76 won by the United States.

The Soviet Union’s strong debut at the 1952 Olympics confirmed Western fears about the nation’s athletic capabilities and immediately made the country a focal point of international competition, Redihan explains.

That anxiety around potential Soviet Olympic dominance was reflected in television broadcasts leading up to the Cortina Games. Just days before the opening ceremony, a January 1956 newsreel stated that official Russian government observers “study the techniques of sports in which the Soviet team is weak” in order to ensure dominance in future contests like the 1960 Olympics and beyond. The official script for the reel would also note that “Russia’s Winter Olympic team is the largest at the games, and despite some weak spots, is believed by many headed for the winter crown.”

Russia’s move toward using sports as a diplomatic tool was a major shift in its public policy. “[Joseph] Stalin didn’t really see the utility of sport in terms of foreign policy, so Russia didn’t pursue sports all that much,” Redihan says. “But then after World War II, with the onset of the Cold War, everything changes.” The Soviet government under Nikita Khrushchev began to consider how winning at the Olympics could help push Soviet ideals forward.

Although the USSR did not participate in the 1948 Winter Olympics, the Soviet government sent a team of observers to watch the Games held in Switzerland. “They went to watch and see what they needed to do to dominate going forward,” Redihan explains.

This commitment to Olympic success was accompanied by an equally significant investment in training and infrastructure. The USSR produced over $8 billion (adjusted for inflation) worth of sports-related equipment in 1951, reports the Associated Press.

Although the United States could not and was not inclined to make that level of investment in sports infrastructure, the fear of Soviet athletic domination began to influence American daily life in other ways, says Redihan: “It becomes kind of a wake-up call to America.”

One way this manifested was the introduction of the Presidential Fitness Challenge, which was first introduced in American public schools just a few months after the 1956 Winter Games. The test served to “make sure that everyone’s getting a little bit of athletic training, while also making it easier to identify who might be an Olympic athlete going forward,” Redihan says.

A particular Team USA star from the 1956 Winter Games was 20-year-old figure skater Tenley Albright,  who became the first American woman to win a gold medal in figure skating. She did so while nursing a major leg injury, making her Olympic journey “a story of courage and artistry,” a 1956 newsreel proclaimed. Similar attention was lavished on fellow American figure skater and women’s silver medalist Carol Heiss. Their successes in figure skating provided an opportunity to celebrate American female athletes.

On the men’s figure skating side, three-time World Figure Skating champion Hayes Alan Jenkins was favored to take the gold at the Games and went on to win gold in men’s singles. His college career and what broadcasters described as his strong and artistic “Jenkins style”—a trait that he shared with his fellow figure skater brother David—portrayed him as an all-American free spirit. Russian athletes, by contrast, “had a reputation of everyone being a state employee,” Redihan says.

The triumphs of Albright, Heiss and Jenkins provided broadcasters a surefire way to highlight American success. “You’re going to focus more on sports like figure skating that went really well. You are not going to focus as much on sports like hockey, where the Soviets do much better than the Americans,” Redihan notes. Although the United States finished the Games with fewer medals overall than the Soviet Union—seven to the USSR’s 16—television coverage still allowed American audiences to celebrate select victories as symbols of national strength.

Ultimately, the Olympics invited average Americans to uniquely participate in the Cold War. “The Olympics can be a source of fear when we’re not doing as well as we thought we could be. But the Games are also useful as propaganda and as a source of distraction,” Redihan says. “It’s a chance to show what we can do.”