Museum of Sierra Ski History and 1960 Winter Olympics Museum of Sierra Ski History and 1960 Winter Olympics The Museum of Sierra Ski History and 1960 Winter Olympics, located in Tahoe City, California, is focused on the heritage of skiing in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California and Nevada. The museum's exhibits include photos and memorabilia about the history of skiing up through the 1960 Winter Olympics, which were held in nearby Squaw Valley, California. Displays include ski equipment, posters, trophies, clothing and local athlete profiles. Official Olympic items include skis, racing bibs, official results, and promotional literature. Olympic participation mementos include exhibited banners, souvenirs and spectator memorabilia. There
Winter Olympic Games War since the Soviet Union first participated at the 1956 Winter Games. It did not take long for the Cold War combatants to discover what a powerful propaganda tool the Olympic Games could be. The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on