No new infrastructure

All five of the venues that staged events on the official programme at St Moritz’s first Olympic Winter Games in 1928 were used again when the resort welcomed the Games once more in 1948. With the exception of the Olympic Ski Jumping Hill (Olympiaschanze), they are all still in use today.

These existing venues helped make St Moritz an attractive choice as the host of the V Olympic Winter Games. They included the Olympia Bob Run St Moritz and the nearby Cresta Run, both of which remain open for use by high-performance athletes and the general public every winter, from December to March.

The Bob Run hosted the bobsleigh events at both Games, and the Cresta Run hosted the cresta competition. Cresta, or head-first tobogganing, as it was also called, featured on the Olympic programme twice only, at St Moritz’s two Winter Games. Skeleton, which is also head-first tobogganing, eventually made its Olympic debut at Salt Lake City 2002. Crafted from natural snow, ice, wood and rocks every year, St Moritz’s two runs, which first opened in 1884 (Cresta Run) and 1904 (Bob Run) are the only naturally refrigerated tracks in the world to continue hosting international competitions.

Built in 1927, the main building of the Olympic Stadium was converted into a private residence in 2008, having fallen into a state of disrepair from the 1980s onwards. The area that was once occupied by the outdoor rink is now used as a driving range by the local golf club. Just as it had done in 1928, the Olympic Stadium hosted the speed skating and figure skating competitions, ice hockey matches, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

The three cross-country events at St Moritz 1948 (the 18km, 50km and 4x10km relay) and the cross-country leg of the Nordic combined started and finished at the resort’s Skistadion, the venue for the 1928 events (the 18km and 50km only). Though the Skistadion’s stands and shooting ranges were dismantled a few years ago, its trails now form part of a 230-kilometre cross-country skiing network catering for both the classic and skating styles. The centrepiece of the network is the challenging 42-kilometre Engadin Ski Marathon route from Maloja to S-chanf. Night-time trails are also available for visitors to enjoy.

Originally built for the 1928 Games, when it hosted one ski jumping event on a 70m hill, the Olympiaschanze again staged a solitary ski jumping competition in 1948, though a 90m hill had been added to the facility by this time. The venue was used by a local ski club up until 2006, when it was closed because of safety concerns. Though plans were drawn up for the construction of a new hill, these were voted down at local government level due to cost issues, with the existing hills subsequently being dismantled and the land rewilded.