The Winter Olympic Games are one of the world's most significant sporting events. Representatives of dozens of countries take part in them, sports competitions are broadcast all over the world. One of the brightest in the history of sports was the 1976 Winter Olympics.
It was originally planned that the 1976 Olympics will be held in the USA in the city of Denver. However, local residents opposed its holding, as a result, the Olympic Committee found itself in a very difficult situation, since the preparation of the Olympic Games takes more than one year of time. It was helped by Austria, which had already hosted the Olympics in 1964 in Innsbruck. As a result of agreements with the Olympic Committee, Innsbruck again hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
1123 people from 37 countries took part in the competition, ten sports disciplines were presented at the games: alpine skiing, bobsleigh, biathlon, speed skating, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, luge, figure skating, hockey.
According to the results of the Olympiad, the winning countries are always determined. At the Olympics in Innsbruck, athletes from the Soviet Union won a convincing victory, having won 13 gold, 6 silver and 8 bronze medals in a bitter struggle. The honorable second place was taken by the GDR - 7 gold, 5 silver and 7 bronze medals. The third place went to athletes from the United States, they received 3 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze medals.
The fans remembered the Olympics in Innsbruck for the high intensity of the struggle. The final of the hockey competition turned out to be especially dramatic, in which old rivals - the national teams of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia - met. Despite the fact that the team from the USSR was considered the favorite, by the end of the first half, the opponents won with a score of 0: 2. In the second half, Soviet hockey players were able to level the score, but eight minutes before the end of the third half, athletes from Czechoslovakia took the lead again. And only the goals of Alexander Yakushev and Valery Kharlamov established the final score in the match - 4: 3 in favor of the USSR national team.
The Soviet skaters also performed well. In pair skating, Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev won gold, in ice dancing, the first were Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov.
Sergei Savelyev won the 30 km race among skiers. At the 15-kilometer distance, two first places went to Nikolai Bazhukov and Evgeny Belyaev. Another medal, bronze, was won in the team race. The gold was deservedly won by athletes from Finland. The women also distinguished themselves - Raisa Smetanina won the 10-kilometer ski race, and Soviet girls also won gold in the relay.
The biathletes also achieved success - Nikolay Kruglov won gold in the individual 20 km race. The Soviet athletes won in the relay too.
The 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck were some of the most intense and exciting of the Olympics and have gone down in sports history forever.
