In 1968, the Winter Olympics were held in the French city of Grenoble. Sapporo, Lake Placid, Oslo, Lahti and Calgary claimed to host the Games. Charles de Gaulle, the President of France, greatly influenced the voting of the IOC members.
The 1968 Winter Games were the first competitions to introduce drug control. For the first time, the events in Grenoble were watched by viewers from all over the world via television in color. Also, a new technology for creating an ice cover was applied here, which positively influenced the results of athletes.
On February 6, at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Grenoble, Charles de Gaulle was the guest of honor, who made a welcoming speech. The closing took place on February 18 at the Lediguire Stadium.
35 sets of medals were played in 10 sports between 1158 athletes, including 211 women. The competition program included the men's biathlon relay, in which Soviet biathletes Alexei Tikhonov, Nikolai Puzanov, Viktor Mamatov and Vladimir Gundartsev became the winners.
The debutants of the 1968 Olympics were teams from Morocco and the GDR. Unfortunately, for the luge team from the GDR, the first performances were overshadowed by a scandal: the Germans showed the best results, but were disqualified for the inadequacy of their sports equipment to technological requirements.
The problems were not only with German athletes. The winter in France was warm - the refrigeration units simply could not cope with the provision of bobsleigh and luge tracks. As a result, the curriculum for these disciplines was reduced.
Most of the medals were won by Jean-Claude Killy, the host of the Olympics. On account of his gold in slalom, giant slalom and downhill. A loud scandal was associated with his name. His rival Karl Schranz had the opportunity to pass the track for the second time, but in the end he was completely removed from the competition.
Among the countries, Norway became the champion in the team event with 6 gold, the same number of silver and two bronze. Athletes from the USSR at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble came second with 5 gold, silver and 3 bronze medals. The winning streak of 3 Olympiads won in a row was interrupted. The hosts of the Games became the third with 4 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals.
