The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated February 4–15, 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria. It was the second time the Tyrolean city hosted the Games.

Following the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, security was tight for the 1976 games.

The cities of Denver, Colorado, United States; Sion, Switzerland; Tampere, Finland; and Vancouver (with the Garibaldi mountains), Canada, made bids for the Games.

The games were originally awarded to Denver in May 12, 1970, but a 300 percent rise in costs and worries about environmental impact led to Colorado voters' rejection on November 7, 1972, by a 3 to 2 margin, of a $5 million bond issue to finance the games with public funds.

Denver officially withdrew on November 15, and the IOC then offered the games to Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, but they too declined owing to a change of government following elections. Whistler would go on to be associated with neighbouring Vancouver's successful bid for the 2010 games.

The Winter Olympic Games is a sporting event, which occurs every four years. The first celebration of the Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The original sports were alpine and cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating. The Games were held every four years from 1924 until 1936 when they were interrupted by World War II. The Olympics resumed in 1948 and were celebrated every four years. The Winter and Summer Olympic Games were held in the same years until 1992, when the governing body for the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), decided to place the Summer and Winter Games on separate four-year cycles in alternating even-numbered years.

The Winter Games have evolved since their inception. Sports have been added and some of them, such as luge, short track speed skating and freestyle skiing, have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic programme. Others, such as speed skiing, bandy and skijoring, were demonstration sports but never incorporated as Olympic sports. The rise of television as a global medium for communication enhanced the profile of the Games. It created an income stream, via the sale of broadcast rights and advertising, which has become lucrative for the IOC. This allowed outside interests, such as television companies and corporate sponsors, to exert influence. The IOC has had to address several criticisms, internal scandals, the use of performance enhancing drugs by Winter Olympians, as well as a political boycott of the Winter Olympics. Nations have used the Winter Games to showcase the claimed superiority of their political systems.

Franz Klammer (born December 3, 1953, in Mooswald, Austria) is a former champion alpine ski racer. Klammer overwhelmingly dominated the downhill event for four consecutive World Cup seasons (1975-78). He was the gold medalist at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, winning the downhill at Patscherkofel in dramatic fashion. He won 25 World Cup downhills, including four on the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel.

Klammer was born into a farming family in Mooswald, Carinthia. Like many alpine farm boys, he skied at school each winter day. He had a tough struggle to make the Austrian skiing team, dominated by the provinces of Tyrol and Salzburg. He spent 13 seasons on the World Cup circuit (1972–85).

Klammer first showed signs of promise in the second half of the 1973 World Cup season, finishing second in the St. Anton downhill behind Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, the reigning Olympic and World Cup downhill champion. Klammer, age 19, followed this up with a third at St. Moritz and a third in the giant slalom at Mont Sainte-Anne. The following season he finished second in the downhill standings behind Roland Collombin of Switzerland, his nemesis that season. After beating Collombin at Schladming under terrible conditions, Collombin bested him at Garmisch, Avoriaz, and Wengen. In December 1974, Collombin fell at Val-d'Isère, as he had the previous year. This time Collombin broke his back in a training run, unfortunately ending his promising career. Klammer won that race and every other downhill that 1975 season, except Megève, where his ski came off; without this incident, he would have won the overall title of 1975, due to a good slalom result two days before at Chamonix, which would have granted him at least a third place (15 points) for the combined of slalom Chamonix / downhill Megève. In the Olympic tune-up run at Patscherkofel at Innsbruck in January 1975, Klammer had defeated defending Olympic champion Bernhard Russi of Switzerland, the runner-up, by nearly a half-second.

Dorothy Stuart Hamill (born July 26, 1956) is an American figure skater. She is the 1976 Olympic champion in Ladies' Singles and 1976 World Champion.

Hamill was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Chalmers and Carol Hamill. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to the Riverside neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut, where Hamill subsequently spent the rest of her childhood. She has a brother and a sister.

Hamill first started skating in early 1965 at the age of 8, taking once-a-week group lessons. She became more serious about the sport the next season, taking regular private lessons and passing her preliminary and first figure test before the seasonal rink closed in March. She was first trained by Otto Gold and Gustave Lussi. Ice time was limited in her area, so she eventually began training at Sky Rink in New York City, staying overnight in the city with friends when possible. In the summers she trained in Lake Placid, New York and later in Toronto with her coach of the time, Sonya Dunfield.

Rosemarie "Rosi" Mittermaier-Neureuther (born 5 August 1950, Reit im Winkl, Bavaria, Germany) is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer. She won two gold medals and one silver at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, becoming the most successful athlete there along with Raisa Smetanina of Soviet Union, and earning her the nickname of Gold-Rosi within Germany (then West Germany).

Mittermaier made her World Cup debut in the inaugural season of 1967 at age 16, won her first World Cup race two seasons later, and retired from international competition following the very successful 1976 season, at age 25. In addition to the overall World Cup title, she also won the season title in slalom and combined in 1976.

Today, she works for several charities and occasionally as a commentator for German television for major sporting events. She is married to Christian Neureuther, winner of six World Cup slalom races, and is the mother of Felix Neureuther, a World Cup ski racer for Germany.