Editing 1968 Winter Olympics (section)

== Host city selection ==
On 24 November 1960, François Raoul, the prefect of the [[Isère Département]], and Raoul Arduin, the president of the [[Dauphiné]] Ski Federation, officially presented the idea of hosting the 1968 Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble. After the city council agreed in principle, different government agencies offered their support, and the villages around Grenoble also reacted positively, an application committee was formed and led by [[Albert Michallon]], the former mayor of Grenoble on 30 December 1960. The application was officially given to the IOC during a meeting between IOC executives and representatives of international sport agencies in [[Lausanne]] in February 1963.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
|+ 1968 Winter Olympics bidding results
|-
! rowspan=2 | City
! rowspan=2 | Country
! colspan=3 style="background:silver;"| Round
|-
! style="background:silver;"| 1
! style="background:silver;"| 2
! style="background:silver;"| 3
|-
| [[Grenoble]] 
| {{flag|France}} 
| style="text-align:center;" |'''15''' 
| style="text-align:center;" |18 
| style="text-align:center;" |'''27'''
|-
| [[Calgary]] 
| {{flag|Canada|1957}}<!-- Canada had this flag during the bidding process, so do not change it. -->
| style="text-align:center;" |12 
| style="text-align:center;" |'''19''' 
| style="text-align:center;" |24
|-
| [[Lahti]] 
|  {{flag|Finland}} 
| style="text-align:center;" |11 
| style="text-align:center;" |14 
| style="text-align:center;" |—
|-
| [[Sapporo]] 
| {{flag|Japan|1947}} 
| style="text-align:center;" |6 
| style="text-align:center;" |— 
| style="text-align:center;" |—
|-
| [[Oslo]] 
| {{flag|Norway}} 
| style="text-align:center;" |4 
| style="text-align:center;" |— 
| style="text-align:center;" |—
|-
| [[Lake Placid, New York|Lake Placid]] 
| {{flag|United States}} 
| style="text-align:center;" |3 
| style="text-align:center;" |— 
| style="text-align:center;" |—
|}

In the application, the decision was not solely based on sport, because there had only been two important sport events in the Isère Département: the Bobsleigh World Championships of 1951 in [[L'Alpe d'Huez]] and the Luge World Championships of 1959 in [[Villard-de-Lans]]. Between 1946 and 1962, the number of inhabitants in Grenoble increased from 102,000 to 159,000, and the total inhabitants in the Département Isère increased from 139,000 to 250,000. The development of the infrastructure could not keep up with this rapid increase, and was, for the most part, at the same level as before [[World War II]]. 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.

The 61st IOC session, where the awarding of the Olympic Games would have been voted for, would have taken place in [[Nairobi]], [[Kenya]]. 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. Due to a lack of time, only the [[1968 Summer Olympics]] host city could be voted for. The vote finally took place in Innsbruck on 28 January 1964, a day before the start of the [[1964 Winter Olympics]]. 51 members who were eligible to vote were in attendance and Grenoble were awarded the games after the third round of voting and were competing against Calgary, who were awarded the Games 20 years later.