The people who were responsible never made a secret out of it that it was mainly for them about using the Olympic Games to receive larger grants to quickly develop dated infrastructure and support the local economy.

This session was moved to Baden-Baden, West Germany, because Kenya refused entry to IOC members from Portugal and apartheid South Africa for political reasons.

The French government played a major role in the preparations for the Games, as president Charles de Gaulle saw an opportunity to present Grenoble as a symbol for a modern France.

Over 7000 soldiers of the French armed forces and also employees of the ministries for Youth and Sport, Finance, Social Building, Education, Post, Culture and Transport were employed.

The ceremony would have taken place on 13 December, but was postponed due to the attempted coup d'état of King Constantine II, who had been forced from his throne eight months before, against the dictatorial military regime of Georgios Papadopoulos.

The reserve flames (a cautionary measure in case the torch went out) burned in twenty carbide lamps, the same as the Olympic fire when it was transported from Athens to Paris in a plane.

The mascot was named Schuss, a stylised skier wearing a blue skiing costume and a large red ball as a head.

The arena has 12,000 seats and is situated in Parc Paul Mistral, Grenoble's main public park located in the center of the city.

Less than 100m away from the Stade de glace, and also in Parc Paul Mistral, the 400m track for the speed skating events was installed between February and November 1966.

The finish line for five out of the six races was in the region of Recoin de Chamrousse, the other was the men's downhill event was in Casserousse.

It was provisionally accepted into the IOC, as long as it formed a complete German team consisting of athletes from both the West and East.

After Halt died in 1961, the same year the Berlin Wall was built by East Germany to prevent the defections of its citizens to the West, the close contact with the IOC leadership was lost under his successor Willi Daume.

On 21 January 1968, 21-year-old Ralph Pöhland, one of the most famous East German winter olympians, fled to West Germany after the pre-Olympic tournament at Les Bioux, Switzerland.

*   Host nation (France)For the 1968 Winter Games, 228 gold, silver and bronze medals were manufactured in total, designed by Roger Excoffon and coined by French minting company Monnaie de Paris.

In addition, the athletes received a box made of black leather, lined with either white, blue or red silk.

The front side of the medal depicted the decorated head of a Greek athlete with snowflakes and ice crystals in the background.

Around the logo contained the words "Xes Jeux Olympiques d'Hiver Grenoble 1968", as well as the Olympic motto "Citius, altius, fortius".

However, similar diplome were handed out to officials, participants, journalists and volunteers on ordinary white paper and without the gold writing as a souvenir.

At the back of the stadium, there was a steel scaffold that kept host to the Olympic flame, located in a 4m wide bowl at the top, which also was able to take 550 kg in weight.

Among the 500 invited guests of honour was IOC president Avery Brundage, the Irani empress Farah Pahlavi, the Danish Princess Margrethe and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg Josephine Charlotte.

At the end, the Patrouille de France, the aerobatic flight display team, flew over the stadium and marked out the colours of the Olympic rings with their vapour trails in the sky.

Whilst the flags of Greece, France and next host Japan were put up, a torchbearer brought the Olympic flame into the stadium and ignited it into a small cauldron on the center of ice.

The first death caused by doping at the Olympic Games occurred in 1960 in Rome, when Danish cyclist Knut Enemark Jensen, who took amphetamines, fell off his bike and died.

Also in 1967, the IOC decided to carry out gender controls in order to prevent intersex people from competing at women's competitions.

Erik Schinegger, the 1966 female downhill world champion from Austria, was tested a couple of days before the 1968 Winter Games.

After learning of this condition, Schinegger ultimately decided to have gender reassignment surgery and legally changed his first name from Erika to Erik.

The media representatives lived in an apartment complex built between April 1966 and October 1967, a few hundred meters away from the Olympic village in Malherbe, a central part of Grenoble.

There were also smaller press centers in the Stade de glace in Grenoble, and at the five other venues in Autrans, Chamrousse, L'Alpe d'Huez, Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, and Villard-de-Lans.

The organising committee COJO assigned 1,545 accreditations to the following people: 1,095 went to press, radio and television journalists, 301 to photographers, and 149 to other unnamed groups.

On 19 September 1966, COJO signed an exclusive contract with ORTF for the provision of broadcasting on the television to EBU's catchment area and to Canada.