1976 Winter Olympics elections. Whistler would go on to be associated with neighbouring Vancouver's successful bid for the 2010 games. Salt Lake City offered to host the games, but the IOC, still reeling from the Denver rejection, declined and selected Innsbruck to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, which had hosted the 1964 Winter Olympics games twelve years earlier, on 5 February 1973. Salt Lake City would then host the Winter Olympics in 2002. The mascot of the 1976 Winter Olympics was "Schneemann", German for "snowman", a snowman in a red Tyrolean hat. Designed by Walter Pötsch, Schneeman was purported to represent the 1976
2010 Winter Olympics was raised on February 28, 2006, in a special ceremony and was on display at Vancouver City Hall until the Olympic opening ceremony. The event was officially opened by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who was accompanied by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. For the first time, Canada won gold in an official sport at an Olympic Games hosted at home, having failed to do so at both the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary (although Canada won the woman's curling event in Calgary when it was