Focus on Stamps 04/2005 - Die Schweizerische Post

Picture Postcard
Olympic Games Turin 2006
Continued from page 13
Tickets for admission and appropriate
package deals (travel, accommodation)
from Kuoni: Tel. +41 (0)31 329 43 43
www.kuoni.ch/turin.html
brn-groups.k@kuoni.ch
Facts and figures about the
20th Winter Olympic Games in Turin
Date: 10 to 26 February 2006
3 Olympic Villages (Turin, Bardonecchia, Sestrière)
2 Houses of Switzerland (Turin, Sestrière)
15 Disciplines with a total of 84 sets of medals
7 venues (Turin, Bardonecchia, Cesana, Pinerolo,
Pragelato, Sauze d’Oulx, Sestrière)
85 nations
2500 athletes, 2500 officials, 650 judges
10 000 media representatives
Further information can be
obtained from
www.swissolympic.ch
www.torino2006.org
www.olympic.org
14
There is little likelihood you’ll meet
athletes outside the events. Security at
the Olympic Villages is extremely tight,
for obvious reasons, so admission is
for accredited persons only. However,
if you call in at the House of Switzerland
in Sestrière or Turin, you might actually
Sales: from 22.11.2005,
while stocks last
Post offices: not available
Philatelic
salespoints: until 31.12.2006
Pre-release: from 15.11.2005
Validity: unlimited from 22.11.2005
Printing: offset
Sizes:
Card: 148105 mm
Imprinted stamp: 3030 mm
Paper: white offset board, 260 gm 2
First-day
cancellation:
Designer: Karin Fanger Schiesser,
Küssnacht ZH
The front shows the Swiss figure skater Stéphane Lambiel;
Karin Schmid (Swiss Short Track Champion) and Florian
Schär (Third in the 2005 Swiss Championship) feature on
the stamp.
come across one or other of the Swiss
sports greats – as all Swiss medal winners
will be honoured in these two Houses.
The four motifs of the 2006 Turin Olympics
Winter sports that take place on ice: that’s the idea behind the motifs on the Swiss Post products marking
the 2006 Turin Olympics.
Curling: This is the first time that curling, invented in Scotland in the 16th century, has featured on a Swiss
stamp. Switzerland always goes into international competitions with great hopes of taking a medal. In 1998 in
Nagano, the men’s team “Lausanne Olympic”, led by Skip Patrick Hürlimann, won the first gold medal for curling
in the history of the Olympics, while the Swiss team came away from Salt Lake City with silver and bronze.
Ice hockey: The IOC official stamp is dedicated to ice hockey. Switzerland has taken part in Olympic tournaments
since 1924 and is currently among the top ten teams in the world. The Swiss team won bronze
medals in 1928 and 1948.
Figure skating: The front of the picture postcard features the reigning world figure skating champion,
Switzerland’s Stéphane Lambiel, in a typical pose. The International Skating Union ISU was founded in 1892.
As the first Winter Olympics were not held until 1924 in Chamonix, figure skating before then was included in
the Summer Olympics (1908 London, 1920 Antwerp).
Short track: The stamp on the picture postcard is dedicated to short track skating. Unlike classical speed
skating, short track has something of the aura of an extreme sport about it. The competitions over the 111
metre oval track have had Olympic status since 1992 and were initially dominated by North and South Koreans
and Chinese. However, Australians, Canadians and Europeans have started to chip away at this supremacy.