Athletes participated in six sports and ten disciplines which bring together a total of thirty-four official events, seven more than the 1960 Winter Olympic Games.

However, in the second round of the vote the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected the American city of Squaw Valley due to its ambitious designs.

During the Games in Innbruck, the IOC President Avery Brundage announced that the country would not be able to participate in the 1964 Summer Olympics because of its policy of racial segregation in sport.

In the weeks leading up to the Games, temperatures often rose above zero degrees Celsius due to the foehn, a hot, dry wind.

[2][12] Two weeks before the start of the Games, thousands of Austrian soldiers were mobilized to transport by truck 40,000m3 of snow from the Brenner Pass, close to the Italian border, and spread it by hand on the ski slopes.

His compatriot Aleksandr Privalov, who also had a clean shoot, was second by more than three minutes and the Norwegian Olav Jordet, who missed a target, won the bronze medal.

[28] The bobsleigh was not on the program for the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, at Squaw Valley in the United States, because of the low number of crews and the cost of building the track.

Neither of the two Olympic champion teams, Great Britain and Canada, has a track in their country[29] During the first round of the two-man event, the bobsleigh of the British Robin Dixon and Tony Nash was damaged and the competition's favorite, the Italian Eugenio Monti, lent them an axle bolt.

Finally, Dixon and Nash become Olympic champions with 12 hundredths ahead of silver medalists Zardini and Bonagura and 73 over third, Eugenio Monti and Sergio Siorpaes.

After the Games, Monti received the first International Fair Play Committee Pierre de Coubertin World Trophy for his sportsmanship towards the British team.

[34] The reigning Olympic champion, the German Georg Thoma, was first ahead of the Norwegian Tormod Knutsen and the Soviet Nikolay Kiselyov after the jumps.

Knutsen needed to beat Thoma by at least twelve seconds in the cross-country ski race to pass him, which he did, winning by 1.33 and becoming Olympic champion.

These three teams were ranked by goal difference with Sweden receiving silver, Czechoslovakia bronze and Canada finishing fourth.

The IOC decided in 1954 to include luge in the program of the 1964 Games to replace the skeleton, because there was only one track adapted to this sport: the Cresta Run of Saint-Moritz in Switzerland.

The death of Poland-born British luger Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski during a test run two weeks before the start of the Games helped reinforce this position.

Indeed, Josef Feistmantl and Manfred Stengl won the first round ahead of Reinhold Senn and Helmut Thaler.

Individually, men and women performed a free skate and compulsory figures while, for the last time in an international competition, the couples only presented one program.

[47][48] The Soviets Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, a married couple, narrowly won the pair event ahead of the German Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler.

[52] The Soviet Ants Antson won the gold medal in the 1,500 meters, ahead of the Dutch Kees Verkerk and the Norwegian Villy Haugen, after a very close race.

[54] Finally, the Swede Jonny Nilsson won the 10,000 meters ahead of the Norwegians Fred Anton Maier and Knut Johannesen.

[58] Upon her return home, Skoblikova was made a member of the Communist Party and became the first woman to win the title of Soviet Sportsman of the Year.

[27][59] The Czechoslovak Josef Matouš surprised many by winning the first round of the normal hill while the Finn Veikko Kankkonen, who was among the favorites, was only twenty-ninth.

The competition was held in mourning for the death of Australian Ross Milne, who crashed into a tree during downhill training.

The French François Bonlieu won the race ahead of the Austrian favorites: Karl Schranz was second, and Josef Stiegler was third.

The Americans Billy Kidd and Jimmy Heuga, second and third respectively, won their country's first Olympic medals in alpine skiing.

The Finn Eero Mäntyranta won the race ahead of the Norwegian Harald Grønningen and the Soviet Igor Voronchikhin.

[77][78] Boyarskikh also won the very close Olympic 5 km, while Finland's Mirja Lehtonen surprised by taking second place.

The President of the IOC Avery Brundage officially declared the Games closed before the extinction of the Olympic flame.

[2][26][84] The Soviets also dominated the ranking of the most medal-winning athletes as the speed skater Lidia Skoblikova and cross-country skier Klavdiya Boyarskikh came first and second.

In the 1970s, the American city of Denver, chosen to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, rejected the bid after a statewide referendum.