In 1949, the IOC named the capital of the XVI Olympiad. Ten cities claimed the right to host the 1956 Summer Olympics. But preference was given to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city. For the first time in history, the largest sports forum was to be held in the Southern Hemisphere.
Despite the fact that the capital of the XVI Olympic Games was determined, there were enough doubts about their success. For Europeans, Australia's geographic remoteness could be a problem. In addition, Melbourne did not have a suitable stadium to host competitions of this magnitude. But the future hosts of the Olympics successfully coped with this difficulty by converting the central Melbourne cricket field into an athletics stadium.
The main problem was highlighted in 1951 at the next session of the IOC. It became known that holding an international equestrian competition in Melbourne is almost impossible, since in Australia there was, and still is, a law allowing the import of animals only after a six-month quarantine and only from some countries.
However, the IOC decided not to postpone the Games. The Olympic equestrian competitions were held in Stockholm from June 11 to 17, 1956. 158 athletes from 29 countries took part in them. The main set of medals was played in Melbourne.
In terms of the number of participants, the XVI Olympiad was inferior to the two previous ones. The unusual timing of the competition - from November 22 to December 8, and the fact that the composition of the teams was reduced due to significant transport costs also affected. The current political situation in the world also had a great influence. In particular, teams from Iraq and China refused to participate in the Olympic Games. The first is in protest against the military action of England, France and Israel in Egypt, the second is because the team of Taiwan was allowed to participate in the Games. The national teams of Switzerland, Spain and Holland boycotted the Games in connection with the events in Hungary. In total, 3314 athletes from 72 countries took part in the XVI Olympic Games.
Nevertheless, the Olympics were successful. The level of the participants in the competitions was very high, as evidenced by the number of records set at the 1956 Games - 77 Olympic and 24 world records. In the unofficial team competition, the USSR national team took the first place, having won a total of 98 medals.
