Cortina, 1956. The snow shines, the world looks to Italy, the Winter Olympic Games have just begun, it is the seventh edition. And then she bursts in: Sophia Loren, not yet 22 years old. Magnetic, fresh, already impossible to ignore. A very young diva, but already with an international aura. It represents the glamorous face of a country that changes pace, becomes modern, international, irresistible. Even before Hollywood, and the Oscar in ’62 for The ciociara. The chronicles tell of his arrival with seven bright red trunks and three suede suitcases (“the few things needed for a couple of days”).
Sophia Loren, godmother of Cortina 1956
She is the godmother, today we would say ambassador. She is photographed and filmed everywhere, in the stands, in the bars, among the people: “the Olympian of beauty”, as the paparazzi immediately define her, stay in room 364 of the Hotel Miramonti and, in three days, he visits numerous delegations, attends the women’s slalom races (with a white blanket to protect himself from the cold) and naturally also promotes, as a world premiere, his movie The luck of being a woman with Marcello Mastroianni.
There are 450 guests at the gala evening. What was then called the jet set was invited, including the then Persian prince Reza Pahlavi, the future Shah, Princes Berth and Margaretha of Sweden, the Prince of Polignac (father of Rainier of Monaco), Brigitta of Sweden, elder sister of the current King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, Princess Margaret of Denmark. It’s all a sparkle of minks, ermine stoles, sheath dresses, sapphires and diamonds. Luxury and not marketing. Another era.
1956. Sophia Loren in Cortina
The role of women at the 1956 Cortina Olympics
In our country, meanwhile, there are Pope Pius XII, President Antonio Segni and women have had the right to vote for a few years (since 1946). There is it Senator Lina Merlin which contributes to giving a twist to the norm it establishes the ban on the dismissal of pregnant women. The Platters are very popular on the radio, with Renzo Carosone You want to be an American and at the cinema they show Poveri ma belli by Dino Risi. There’s the TV filming everything for the first time. It is a period of great enthusiasm: everything becomes possible.
Margherita Bottero was 18 years old when she took part in the Olympic Games in Cortina, in women’s cross-country skiing.
Of course, the road to female emancipation is still long: there are just 146 female athletes out of 924 athletes in total. There are 14 Italians competing from January 26th to February 5th. Yet, it is an unrepeatable moment. Above all, for chundreds of women who have the opportunity to gain visibility for the first time: translators, speakers, interpreters, award ceremony workersas revealed by the well-documented book by Antonella Stelitano and Adriana Balzarini, The women of Cortina 1956 (Minerva). Both Stars of Sporting Merit, respectively from the CONI and the Paralympic Committee, have done extensive historiographical work among period documents and newspapers.
The Olympics of the first times
The sisters Carla and Maria Grazia Marchelli, among the protagonists of Italian alpine skiing in the 1950s, both competing in Cortina.
So, there it is Giuliana Minuzzo Chenal, skier, bronze in Oslo ’52the first woman in the history of the Olympic Games to read the oath formula which, for television reasons, is repeated twice. The newspapers define her as the “pretty downhill skier”, “the blonde and slender mother from the Aosta Valley”, but she is impeccable albeit emotional. Alberta Vianello, world champion on roller skates, the only Italian torchbearer (out of 256) in the torch journey. He only holds it for five minutes on a stretch from Mestre to Treviso, but it is the first ever in Italy.
There are the guardians of the Olympic fire. One of them, Lilla Rigatti, born in 1940, still lives in Veneto. He was sixteen years old at the time. She will become a basketball coach, airplane and glider pilot. In the book he says he only stopped skiing at 83. On medical indication. After the third heart attack. Unfortunately, he comments.
«Cortina 1956 is above all the Olympics of the first times for women: they were all pioneers»
«Cortina 1956 is above all the Olympics of the first times for women: they were all pioneers” comments Adriana Balzarini. «The female presence in sport already existed, but often in marginal roles, female athletes were inserted between one men’s competition and another. Just to give you an idea, curling and women’s hockey entered the Olympic Games in 1998, ski jumping in 2014. For the first time, the Soviet Union also participates, with a women’s team. And for the first time the athletes of the two Germanys compete under one flag.
If at the first edition in 1924 women were 4.3 percent of the total participants, in 1956, 17 percent was recorded and the value remained below the 30 percent threshold until 1994. The most surprising thing, however, about all our research was discovering that many women worked behind the scenes at the Games, in fundamental and untold roles.”
Women off the slopes
Giovanna Mariotti. She was the first accredited Italian reporter. She was director of “Il Notiziario di Cortina” and of the magazine “Cortina”
Among the journalists, there is Giovanna Mariotti, the only Italian accredited in the press room, for example. He writes for the magazine Curtain. The most famous among the journalists are the Swiss Colette Muret of Gazette de Lausanne and the American Theresa Weld Blanchard of Skating Magazine, six-time gold medalist at the US skating championships. And then: Ingeborg WÖrndle, the only female voice of the Games, the multilingual speaker of the Alpine ski trials.
And, again, there is Franca Helg, architect and designer, which takes care of the image of Cortina ’56 between graphics, decorated buildings, shop windows and gadgets. «I also like to remember Giuliana Attenni, the only woman who participates in the editing of the docufilm White vertigo, restored in 2014 and today considered one of the jewels of the Olympic collection” continues the author. «The protagonists were, then, dozens and dozens of university students. We needed trained girls who were familiar with English, French and German and it was decided to go and recruit them in universities.”
Blue avalanche
Among the many extras of those days,– the newspapers dismiss them as “peasants” – there are the young women from Cortina who hand out the prizes with the typical Ampezzo dress. Some, in fact, were actually involved in milking but are living their fifteen Warholian minutes of glory. «Of all the stories, I was struck by that of a Swiss skier who, when she receives the prize, says thanks. He confesses that the Olympics were a real holiday given that, at home, in the mountains, he was busy cleaning the stables. Stories that highlight what it was like in that period and what role women had.”
It must be said that no Italian athlete obtained a race medal in Cortina 1956. The Italian national team won only three medals overall, all in men’s bobsleigh: one gold and two silvers. In alpine skiing, however, they are recorded the fourth places of Giuliana Minuzzo Chenal in the downhill and slalom, and the sixth places of Gino Burrini and Carla Marchelli, in the two free runs. The skiers present contribute to building the foundations of women’s alpine skiing in Italy together with, among others, Margherita Bottero, Giuliana Minuzzo, Anna Pellissier. Carla Marchelli is the most famous, she brought Italian women’s skiing onto the international scene: silver in the slalom in Oslo 1952, she is one of the first women’s Olympic medals in the specialty. La Gazzetta dello Sport at the time he exalted and supported her.
Goodbye Cortina!
Cortina 1956. Sophia Loren signs autographs during the Olympic Games (Getty)
As for Sophia Loren, when she leaves again, amidst the flashes of the paparazzi, is wearing a black wool jumpsuit and a beaver fur coat. She doesn’t get on the train, they provide her with a luxurious Alfa Romeo. With him is the inseparable lady-in-waiting, today she would be a stylist. He receives a bouquet of red roses and says thank you. Meanwhile, there are rumors of the arrival of the “rival” Gina Lollobrigida in the Pearl of the Dolomites. It won’t happen. He has a fever, he lets you know. In reality, perhaps she doesn’t want to be second to anyone.
