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
1960 Winter Olympics from the United States won an improbable gold medal, defeating the favored Canadian and Soviet teams, who took silver and bronze respectively. This was the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey for the United States and it would mark the last time a Soviet team did not win the Olympic tournament until the United States victory at the 1980 Winter Olympics. There were six cross-country skiing races at the 1960 Olympics, four for men and two for women, all held at the McKinney Creek Cross-Country Complex. Soviet women swept the 10 kilometer race, which was the first medal sweep