Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water

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1 Wanda Ellen Wakefield Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water Wanda Ellen Wakefield State University of New York Brockport, U.S.A. At the Olympic Winter Games held at Squaw Valley, California in 1960 volunteers played a crucial role in the successful staging of the event. The Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, a long-time advocate of sport in his adopted nation of Liechtenstein, accompanied skiers from that country to the Games while also working to ensure the introduction of the sport of luge at the Innsbruck Olympics in Meanwhile, volunteer speed skating officials struggled with new technologies at their venue. Finally, anonymous volunteers back at the office contended with issues related to the on-going Cold War and the often contentious relationship between East and West Germany, as well as conflicting demands on their resources imposed by the United States State Department. Since their inception, the modern Olympic Games have depended upon volunteers to do the hard work. Volunteers officiate at the Games. Volunteers usher the crowds. Volunteers sell the tickets. Volunteers compile start lists and hand out race bibs. Volunteers take care of peoples medical needs. Volunteers organize national and international federations. Indeed, without volunteers the entire Olympism project would collapse under its own weight. Of course, not all volunteers are alike, in background, interests, or goals. Some show up only during an Olympic Games. Some officiate not only at an Olympic Games but also at the many small meets and contests required to ready an athlete for competition at an Olympic event. Some volunteers work in various capacities, over many decades, because they want to participate in, and because they are able financially to do, long-term Olympic work. In 1960 all three types of these Olympic volunteers made significant contributions to the staging of the Winter Games at Squaw Valley. That year, in addition to those volunteers working on the field of play, many anonymous men and women worked back at the office on the paperwork attendant upon any competition, often waiting until game time decisions were made in order to finish their job. Meanwhile, at speed skating, volunteer officials struggled to make new timing technology and new ice machines work in the way in which they were intended. And the long-time enthusiastic supporter of the Olympic movement, the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein continued to promote the small country of Liechtenstein and its sports program, by bringing a team of skiers to California over the protests of Liechtenstein s Crown Prince Francis Joseph. Through both their efforts and the efforts of many other volunteers who worked pre-games competitions all over the globe, the 1960 Olympic Winter Games at Squaw Valley ultimately succeeded, despite the controversy over the International Olympic Committee s decision to give the Games to a resort, which, at the time of the award announcement, was completely unprepared and undeveloped for the task. 478

2 Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein was one of those volunteers whose wealth and connections afforded him ample time to devote to the Olympic movement. Baron von Falz-Fein began his involvement with Olympism as a relatively young man whose interest in sports and athletics would last throughout his long life. Born on 14 September 1912, the son of Russian aristocrats, he was raised in Nice, France, his family having fled the Russian Revolution of By 1935 he had moved to Liechtenstein where he became involved in the organization of the first Olympic Committee for that small alpine country. The following year (1936) he took advantage of his own athleticism, by piloting a two-man bobsled at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and finished 18th among the 22 sleds entered in that year s Olympic competition. Later in 1936, Falz-Fein turned up in Berlin to cover that year s notorious Summer Games as a correspondent for the French sporting newspaper that would eventually evolve into L Equipe. 1 Then, as with all Olympic enthusiasts, Falz-Fein had to wait for over a decade and the conclusion of the Second World War before another staging of the Games became possible. Shortly after World War II, Allied authorities concluded that one of the quickest ways toward European economic recovery was to promote tourism. To that end the Marshall Plan, an American program for post-war European redevelopment, provided substantial funds to Austria and other countries, to allow them to rebuild the infrastructure necessary to attract tourists especially those cashrich Americans. 2 Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein was also interested in promoting tourism for Liechtenstein, and he imagined that one way to do so would be to lift his adopted nation s international profile through continuing Olympic participation. Therefore, he organized another Liechtenstein bobsled team for the 1956 Games at Cortina d Ampezzo, Italy. In light of the many crashes, injuries and deaths which have occurred on that track over the years (including the death of American bobsled pilot, James Morgan, during the 1981 World Bobsleigh Championships), the young men he chose for that team performed quite credibly during their Olympic competition. 3 But, after the 1956 Olympics Falz-Fein would change his focus, to concentrate on developing ski champions and luge competitors rather than bobsled heroes. 4 First, however, Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein devoted his time to a non-olympic project, again designed to encourage tourism. Between 1956 and 1960 he tried to organize a consortium of small countries Andorra, San Marino, and Monaco in addition to Liechtenstein who would work together to attract international visitors for their mutual benefit. Unfortunately for Falz-Fein, the comic novel, The Mouse That Roared, by Leonard Wobbley, had just been published. Wobbley s novel, which described a tiny European principality s decision to declare war on the United States in order to win foreign aid, was widely assumed to be about Liechtenstein. Crown Prince Francis Joseph, fearing he and his country being mocked in the novel and in the movie that followed, failed to support Falz-Fein s efforts to organize the small European countries. He also decided to ban future Olympic participation by athletes from Liechtenstein unless they were prepared to succeed. 5 In this small way, the Crown Prince was echoing earlier sentiments of Joseph Stalin s who did not want his Soviet athletes to compete abroad unless they were going to demonstrate the superiority of Communism and the Soviet system by winning the medal count. Obviously, the threat to athletes who did not succeed was not as great in Liechtenstein as it was in the Soviet Union, but both rulers clearly felt that merely participating in an Olympic Games was not enough to enhance national prestige. 6 At the same time, the Liechtensteiner Falz-Fein had partnered with the Austrian Bert Isatitsch to organize a separate International Luge Federation (FIL), which then broke away from the FIBT (International Bobsled Federation) in The Squaw Valley organizers had already received permission from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cancel bobsledding events in 1960, by arguing that, given the very few nations prepared to compete in the discipline, building the necessary refrig- 479

3 480 Wanda Ellen Wakefield erated track would be too expensive. However, both Isatitsch and Falz-Fein, having completed the FIL s split from that of Bobsled, hoped to have the sport of luge included on the 1960 Olympic program, and vehemently argued that luge racing could still happen if the organizers were willing to construct a very inexpensive natural track. 7 Although biathlon (previously known as the exhibition sport Military Drill) was restored to the 1960 Olympics, luge was not included. Falz-Fein and his associates would have to wait until the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck to introduce their sport of Luge to the world. His on-going involvement with luge, however, gave Falz-Fein a perfect response to Crown Prince Francis Joseph s decision to not allow skiers from Liechtenstein go to the 1960 Games. Accordingly, the Crown Prince s decision did not matter to Falz-Fein, as he was going to the Olympics anyway as a representative of the FIL! So, given that Falz-Fein was going to be in Squaw Valley no matter what, Francis Joseph eventually relented and gave his permission for Falz- Fein to accompany Liechtenstein s skiers to California. 8 Although none of the men entered in the downhill, giant slalom, or slalom races medaled, or even finished in the top ten, Silvan Kindle did achieve the rank of 21st among the 63 competitors entered in the slalom race. He and his brother, Hermann Kindle then tied for 49th in the downhill. The third entry from Liechtenstein, Adolph Fehr, also finished both the downhill and the giant slalom. In other words, although skiers from Liechtenstein were not yet competitive, they were able to achieve credible results and NOT embarrass their homeland or their Crown Prince. 9 After 1960 Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein continued to promote Liechtenstein and its sports programs as well as the sport of luge. In 1961 he traveled to New York City to support the development of luge in the United States. From 1962 to 1972 he also served as Treasurer of the International Luge Federation. Finally, Falz-Fein s long held faith in the Liechtenstein athlete was rewarded, when, from 1976 through 1988, five skiers from Liechtenstein took medals in Olympic Games competition. Willy Frommelt and Hanni Wenzel both won bronze in slalom skiing at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympic Winter Games. Their success was followed in 1980 in Lake Placid, when Hanni Wenzel won three skiing medals (two gold, in the giant slalom and slalom, and silver in the downhill) and her brother, Andreas, won the silver medal in the giant slalom. Andreas Wenzel would follow up his 1980 Olympic success with a bronze in the giant slalom at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Games, while Ursula Konzett, also from Liechtenstein, took bronze in the women s slalom. And in 1988 Paul Frommelt skied to a bronze medal in the slalom at Calgary, during those Olympic Games. 10 Although athletes from Liechtenstein have not medaled since, they continue to participate in skiing, luge, and cycling, another of Falz-Fein s sporting interests. So too, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein continues to use both his money and networking resources actively, establishing a nature preserve in Ukraine, funding the search for the Czar s lost amber room, and, still, encouraging the development of sport in his adopted country. He remains an honorary member of the International Luge Federation to this day. 11 Obviously, the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein s Olympic experience was mediated by his wealth and connections throughout Europe. As someone who had the time and inclination to contribute to sport he was well positioned, after organizing the Liechtenstein National Olympic Committee in 1935 and piloting a bobsled for Liechtenstein in 1936, to continue his work after World War II. By encouraging the development of sport tourism in his alpine nation, Falz-Fein contributed to the economic redevelopment of post-war Europe. And thanks to his work with Bert Isatisch, the Baron von Falz-Fein put the sliding sport of luge on the Olympic calendar. 12 But it must be understood that the majority of Olympic volunteers have neither wealth nor connections. Instead they come from all walks of life to support the Olympic project. They may be fol-

4 Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water 481 lowers of certain sports. They may be the parents of athletes or former athletes themselves. They may simply be sports enthusiasts looking for a way to spend their long summers or winters outdoors. But whatever their background they know that they will be contributing their time and effort to ensuring that athletic competitions, in the Olympics, and outside the Games, are safe and fair for all concerned. This was the case at Squaw Valley, in February of 1960, where a relatively anonymous group of forty-two speed skating officials convened for the Olympic Winter Games. There were a number of firsts with regard to speed skating at Squaw Valley. Although the organizers of the 1956 Games at Cortina had chosen to have the speed skaters race on a frozen mountain lake, the 1960 Squaw Valley organizers decided to lay down a refrigerated, outdoor, 400 meter ice sheet immediately adjacent to the athletes village and the partially-enclosed Blyth Arena, along with three other outside rinks that could be used for ice hockey or figure skating. Squaw Valley would also feature the introduction of women s speed skating as an Olympic Games event. And, for the first time, an electronic timing system would be used to determine winners and losers among those speed skaters. 13 Although electronic timing had long been the norm in other winter sports, as is evident from the Final Report generated by the 1952 Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games held in Oslo (which included photographs of the timing eye locations on the ski slopes and an explanation of how a cathode tube ray between two photo-electric cells was broken when the body of the competitor crossed the line) the International Skating Union had continued to rely on officials, supplied with stop watches, to time their events. 14 Whatever the merits of those two systems, the Olympic Games at Squaw Valley were also the venue for the introduction of a variety of modern technical innovations, including the use of an International Business Machine (IBM) RAMAC 306 computer with 26 technicians provided by the company. IBM intended to deliver complete, accurate, results quickly, especially in events such as ski jumping which required extensive calculations of distance and style points to determine each athlete s placings. Results would be available within a few minutes, rather than after the several hours that had been common in earlier competitions. 15 The new IBM computer had previously been demonstrated at the Brussels World s Fair, but it was at Squaw Valley in 1960 that it came into its own by expediting with near-lightening speed the compilation of masses of data, in the memorable words of the New York Times reporter Gladwin Hill. 16 The 400 meter speed skating oval and the other outdoor ice sheets were, by general standards, deemed satisfactory, but the ice in the Blyth Arena would plague Squaw Valley organizers throughout those February Games. In 1958, the 8500 seat Blyth Arena had won an award for progressive architecture. However, its designers could not overcome certain issues, resulting from a peculiar requirement imposed by figure skating s ruling body, the International Skating Union (ISU). The problem, simply stated, resulted from another old ISU rule requiring figure skating to be held outdoors. 17 So as to fulfill the intent of the rule, while simultaneously providing spectators with some shelter from the possible snow and wind, the designers left the Blyth Arena s south wall open to the elements. Because the open wall was on the South side of the space, afternoon heating from the sun tended to melt the ice at that end while leaving the ice at the North end intact. 18 Furthermore, the combined melting of the ice and the heat of spectators bodies tended to create a fog under the roof. This condensation situation forced the organizers to reschedule several ice hockey games to avoid the afternoon sun and caused them to rely even more on the outdoor ice sheets for practice and competitions. In any event, the questionable indoor ice conditions and the introduction of new timing devices posed a number of challenges for the officials. Although the Longines-Winnauer watch company had provided a sixteen member team to help run the electronic systems and scoreboards, they were put into place too late to give the officials sufficient practice with the changes at least that appears to be

5 482 Wanda Ellen Wakefield the case based on what happened one afternoon during speed skating training. Because of their unfamiliarity with the new electronic timing, the officials apparently decided, during training, that they would revert to the old stop-watch method and provide skaters with hand-timed results. The officials were evidently concerned that the electronic times being recorded could not be true, as in the case of the defending Olympic 500 meter champion, whose time during training of 40 seconds flat at that distance was 2/10ths of a second faster than his previous 1956 Games record. 19 As Michael Strauss, writing for the New York Times, explained it, the automatic clock had acted strangely during the early stages of Grishin s efforts and officials had changed to hand watches. 20 Unfortunately for the officials, participating team coaches were expecting rapidly to receive electronic results, thereby immediately allowing them to advise their skaters of adjustments they might use to improve their individual times. Instead, both coaches and athletes were forced to wait as the officials methodically prepared their hand written time sheets. Due to the shift by officials, from electronic to hand-timing, these new time sheets looked as though the times of many of the skaters had been changed. 21 This led to numerous, and heated, complaints by coaches and athletes who felt that they were being disadvantaged because of the officials decision. Squaw Valley organizers caused yet another problem for the speed skating officials with their decision to use a new ice resurfacing machine which was specifically designed (like the modern day Zamboni) to repair cracks in the ice and to provide for a fresh surface on a regular basis. As described in its Final Report by the Organizing Committee, the machine, this sort of proto-zamboni, theoretically would take only 45 minutes to plane and resurface the ice and also lay snow lanes for the speed-skating events. Had the machine worked as advertised, this would have been a very useful innovation in ice-making technology, but apparently the officials in charge of running the machine were having great trouble making it do what it was supposed to do. So, on that very same afternoon, during that speed skating training which saw the reintroduction of stopwatches, the ice surface began to break up under foot. As the officials stood debating what to do about their new machine, a visiting speed-skating expert brought out a bucket of water, dumped it on the ice where the cracks had appeared, and waited for that to freeze, thus providing a relatively new clean race surface with his low-tech solution. The officials were no doubt embarrassed by the snafu involving the ice maker, but Sven Laftman, the ISU Vice President and referee in charge of all the speed skating competitions, was incensed. He charged the American officials with relying too much on machines and then not knowing how to make them work. Then he announced that he wanted five judges replaced in order to, as he put it, bring order to the mess here. Indeed, he suggested that the volunteer officials were so incompetent that, to make the Olympic speed-skating contests a success, it will be necessary to bring in men who know what it is all about. 22 Laftman surely knew he was incorrect when he suggested that the officials at speed skating had no familiarity with the sport. Indeed, his own assistant referee, Del Lamb, was the 1936 World Champion at 500 meters and had competed in the Olympics at both Garmisch in 1936 and St. Moritz in So too, having officiated at the 1949 Great Lakes Speed-Skating Championships in Milwaukee had Dick McCarter, the Chief Starter for the venue, been involved in the sport for a long time. 24 In any event, twenty-four hours later, under pressure from the United States Olympic Committee and the Squaw Valley Organizing Committee, Sven Laftman backed down. Suggesting that he had been misunderstood when he demanded that five officials be fired from the Games, he argued that he d merely wanted to make sure that the judges already working the speed skating events had enough help. And he pledged to get them that help by bringing in five additional officials from Fin-

6 Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water 483 land, Japan, Norway, Sweden and the Soviet Union to share responsibilities during training and competition. 25 What cannot be determined from this great distance is whether those judges were already at Squaw Valley as part of an official ISU delegation, or whether they were flown in at the last minute to help out. What is clear, however, is that despite the presence of five additional officials the speed skating competition continued to be marred by controversy. On one occasion the judges forgot to ring the bell for the final lap, causing skaters from Canada and Finland to misjudge the start of their sprints. In that case, Sven Laftman rejected the skaters protests, reasoning that even though they did not hear the final lap signal it made no difference in the end because neither of the affected women was in the top ten in the race. Evidently, by that time Laftman was willing to bend the rules in order to move the competition forward and given the energy already expended by the two women in their first skate a second chance would have likely also made no difference. Nevertheless, despite all of the problems during training and competition, the Squaw Valley Organizing Committee, in its Final Report, argued that the speed skating events were run off excellently, pointing, as evidence, to the various World Records which had been achieved on the innovative surface. Despite the various controversies with regard to the introduction of electronic timing and the failure of the new ice machine, the four men s and four women s events provided further proof that the Soviet Union would continue to field strong skaters. In 1960 Yevgeny Grishin would defend two of the gold medals he earned at Cortina in Squaw Valley also saw the debut of the great Lidiya Skoblikova who won the women s 1500 and 3000 meter races and who would go on to win all four women s races four years later at the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck. The traditionally strong Norwegian men s team managed to win only four medals, in the absence of any competitive Norwegian female skaters to challenge Skoblikova and the East German Helga Haase. Meanwhile the United States ended up with two speed-skating medalists, Jeanne Ashworth, who took bronze in the women s 500 and William Disney who took silver at Ashworth s success would prefigure later American speed skating Olympic champions such as Dianne Holum and Bonnie Blair. As had been the case in 1956, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) required that representatives from both the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) field a combined team at Squaw Valley in This United German team featured the women s speed skater Helga Haase who won gold at 500 meters and silver at Although her results were not controversial, comments she made after her competition engendered considerable anxiety among both the German team and the American Games organizers. When the United States was awarded the 1960 Olympic Winter Games the organizers promised that all bona fide athletes would be welcomed into the country. But in 1960 the United States and other NATO nations still had not recognized an independent German Democratic Republic (GDR) or established diplomatic relations with that Communist state. This meant that, should it wish to do so, the U.S. State Department could deny entry to any athlete from the Eastern part of Germany. Moreover, although the IOC required the Germans to enter a combined team of athletes from both the West and East, tensions remained high among the athletes, who certainly knew which side of the Iron Curtain they were supposed to represent. The whole matter of East German recognition for the purpose of sport came to a head in For the Olympic test events that year, the State Department refused to allow the admission of athletes from the GDR who wished to compete as a distinct team. 27 International Olympic Committee President, Avery Brundage, accepted this ruling and advised the (GDR) Olympic Committee that they would have to accept that the United States did NOT have to apply, to the 1959 test events, the rules the State Department had already accepted for the actual 1960 Olympic Games. 28 In response, an infuriated Merrill G. Hastings, publisher of Skiing magazine, told Brundage that the

7 484 Wanda Ellen Wakefield Organizing Committee had seriously blundered in having formally invited skiers from East Germany to the Squaw Valley trials without knowing who they were and without making advance arrangements with the State Department to let them come in to the country. 29 Then, in the months before the Olympic Games, the U.S. State Department refused to provide entry visas to a number of coaches and reporters from the GDR. Probably worried, with good cause, that some of these individuals were spies, the U.S. government reiterated its view that only bona fide athletes and their coaches would be granted visas. The result was that ten trainers, two interpreters, and a diplomatic attaché from the GDR, as well as two East German sports reporters were all denied admission to the United States. 30 This decision was particularly infuriating in the eyes of the GDR because, as pointed out by Heinz Schoebel from the East German Olympic Committee, no reporters from West Germany (FRG) had been kept out of the United States. 31 Moreover, Schoebel reminded reporters, one cannot expect an athlete to work out properly under a strange trainer, especially during the tension-filled days preceding an Olympic Games. Despite both an editorial in the New York Times challenging the State Department s decision and Avery Brundage s comment that all legitimate sports journalists should be admitted to the country, the ban remained in place throughout the completion of the Games. 32 As for the volunteers at the Squaw Valley Organizing Committee, they found themselves in a difficult position. Should they fight their own State Department or acquiesce? And what did the decision to deny entry to reporters from the GDR (East Germany) while allowing free access to reporters from the FRG (West Germany) mean for the internationalist Olympic movement? Should they, the volunteers back at the office, decide to issue credentials to the East Germans without regard to the position of the U.S. government? In any event, over significant protests from the American media and the IOC, the State Department s decision banning the affected members of the East German delegation was upheld. One of the coaches unable to enter the United States was Helge Haase s husband, Helmuth Hasse, 33 who had, in fact, been chosen to be the coach for all of the German skaters, whether from the East or the West. Once her victory in the 500 meters was assured, the East German Haase spoke out about the situation, declaring that she had skated especially hard both for her husband and for her people, saying I promised I d do twice as well because he wasn t here. 34 This did not sit well with members of the German delegation from the FRG. Nor did the debate over whether the West German Fritz Wagnerberger should be replaced on the ski team by the East German Eberhard Riedl. Although a threatened strike by West German athletes did not materialize upon Riedl s addition to the squad, Hans Urban, a team manager said that neither he nor they would ever forgive or forget this ugly affair. 35 Again, the Olympic volunteers were caught in the middle, forced to wait for the German decision regarding which athlete would be nominated for the races, so they could then generate start lists and issue race bibs. These men and women, sporting volunteers, suddenly, in a sense, found themselves on the front lines of the Cold War. Finally, when the Games were over, athletes from East and West Germany left Squaw Valley separately, thereby negating the notion that some sort of harmony had developed among the competitors and their respective national federations. In the years leading up to the 1960 Olympic Winter Games at Squaw Valley men and women from around the world such as the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, as well as individual sports enthusiasts from the United States such as Del Lamb, spent countless hours preparing themselves to serve the larger Olympic movement. Other men and women came together solely to participate in the Games by doing paper work and the other unsung tasks necessary for the success of the competitions. Often overlooked in discussions about Olympism, these volunteers and officials have been and will continue to be the backbone of the Movement and central to its ongoing development. For the 2002

8 Squaw Valley, 1960: Volunteers, Technology and a Bucket of Water 485 Olympic Winter Games, the rules of the International Luge Federation called for no fewer than 70 licensed officials to work the competition at Salt Lake City. Today the organizers of the 2012 Games awarded to London, England are culling the applications of tens of thousands of volunteering men and women from around the world, trying to identify and put in place that special crew of dedicated individuals who will ensure those Games success. Whatever the motivations of the people who work the Games, their volunteer efforts are always needed. Endnotes 1 See Guy Walters, Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007). 2 See Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, The Requirements of Reconstruction, 8 May, 1947, Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XVI, Number 411, , and Certain Aspects of the European Recovery Problem, Subject File, Clifford Papers, ca. July 1947, both at See also Intensive Tourism Advised in Austria, New York Times, 19 February 1949, 9. 3 See html. 4 For a discussion of the reconfiguration of the bobsled track at Cortina before the Olympic Winter Games in 1956, see Report Presented by the Italian National Olympic Committee (C.O.N.I.), Olympic Review 42 (1953), A Little Summit Trips Ski Chief, New York Times, 4 January 1960, The post-war Chair of the Soviet Sports Commission, Nikolai Romanov, for example, was purged in 1947 for the alleged failure of Soviet athletes in international competition, only to be reinstated in 1951 shortly before the Soviet Union officially joined the Olympic movement. See Jenifer Parks, Verbal Gymnastics: Sports, Bureaucracy, and the Soviet Union s Entrance into the Olympic Games, , in: East Plays West: Sport and the Cold War, eds. Stephen Wagg and David L. Andrews (New York: Routledge, 2007), For more on the decision to drop bobsledding from the Olympic program in 1960, see Wanda Wakefield, The Bobsled Controversy and Squaw Valley s Olympic Games, in Cultural Imperialism in Action: Critiques in the Global Olympic Trust, eds. R.K. Barney, N. Crowther and M. Heine (London, Ontario: International Centre for Olympic Studies, 2006), Liechtenstein s Olympic Skiers Win Uphill Fight for U.S. Visas, New York Times, 19 January 1960, Results for Liechtenstein s skiers at the 1960 Olympic Winter Games are from 10 All alpine skiing results are from 11 See for a photograph of the Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein celebrating his 95 th birthday with Josef Fendt, President of the International Luge Federation. 12 For a formal biography of Baron von Falz-Fein see a sports diplomat at the official website for Liechtenstein, Electronic Device Will Replace Stop Watches in Olympic Games, New York Times, 14 February 1960, Rolf Petersen, VI Olympische Vinterleker; Olympic Winter Games, Oslo, 1952 (Oslo: Organizing Committee, 1952), Robert Rubin, ed., VIII Olympic Winter Games, Squaw Valley, California, 1960, Final Report (California Olympic Commission, 1960). The new IBM computing system was apparently considered a marvel for its time as reported by the New York Times among other chroniclers of the Games. 16 Gladwin Hill, Squaw Valley Olympic Scores to be Computed by Electronics, New York Times, 12 January 1959, Series of Conversations with Mark Friden, figure skater and American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Technical Consultant and Researcher for figure skating from 1983 through 1987 and technical advisor to Dick Button and Peggy Fleming for the figure skating competitions at Sarajevo in 1984, at Lake Placid, February, Michael Strauss, Indoor Rink Slushy, Though Ice Stays Hard Outdoors, New York Times, 15 February, 1960, Michael Strauss, Germans Quarrel Over Team Shift, New York Times, 17 February 1960, Ibid. 21 Skating Chief Drops Five Judges, Calling Them Inexperienced, New York Times, 18 February, 1960, Ibid.

9 For Del Lamb s results see www. Sports-reference.com (accessed July 14, 2010). As of February 2010, Del Lamb was still with us at age 95. See Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Speedskater Followed His Dream to 36, 48 Olympics, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 18 February Milt Krueger to Referee Great Lakes Meet Here, Milwaukee Journal, 19 January, Men s Downhill Off Till Monday, New York Times, 19 February 1960, All speed skating results are from According to Jim Nendel, Grishin, who won two gold medals and set two World Records at Cortina in 1956, should have become an international sports star on the level of Toni Sailer. Whether he was recognized for his achievements in the Soviet Union, Yevgeny Grishin obviously did NOT become an international star. See Jim Nendel, The Cold War: Emerging from the Ice at the 1956 Cortina D Ampezzo Winter Olympic Games, in The Global Nexus Engaged: Past, Present, Future Interdisciplinary Olympic Studies, eds. K.B. Wamsley, R.K. Barney, and S.G. Martyn (London, ON: International Centre for Olympic Studies, 2002), New York Times, 17 February 1959, Telegram, Avery Brundage to Olympic Committee, German Democratic Republic, February 20, 1959, in folder VIII Winter Games, Squaw Valley, Organizing Committee, 1958, in Avery Brundage papers at University of Illinois. 29 Merrill G. Hastings, Jr., to Avery Brundage, 20 February 1959, in Avery Brundage Papers at the University of Illinois. 30 For a post-olympic discussion concerning the IOC s response to the protests by journalists from the German Democratic Republic, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, see Extract Minutes of the 56 th Session of the IOC, Annex #3, Olympic Review 70 (May 1960), East Germans Denied U.S. Visas, New York Times, 7 February 1960, S5. See also Vice Chef de Mission Schroder to Brundage, 13 February 1960, in Folder VIII Winter Games Squaw Valley, 1960 General , in Avery Brundage papers. 32 See Absent at Squaw Valley, 17 February 1960, 34; Free Press Gets Olympic Support, New York Times, 16 February 1960, Although the New York Times referred to Helmuth Hasse in its reporting, the International Olympic Committee s Official website spells Helga s name as Haase. 34 Gladwin Hill, 2 Germans First, New York Times, 21 February 1960, S1. 35 German Team in Dispute, New York Times, 16 February 1960, 2.