The village of Lake Placid, New York, in the United States, has submitted seven bids to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the Winter Olympic Games, and it has been awarded the Games twice, in 1932 and 1980. Lake Placid has also applied to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC, formerly USOC) on six other occasions with a potential bid, only for the USOC to choose another American city as its nominee to present to the IOC.
1932
In association with the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, the French Olympic Committee hosted an "International Winter Sports Week" in Chamonix in January 1924. After the success of this event, the International Olympic Committee gathered in Prague in 1925 for its 8th Olympic Congress. There, the Olympic Winter Games Charter was signed, retroactively designating the Chamonix event as the first Winter Olympic Games and providing for such events to take place every four years alongside the Summer Olympics. It was also agreed in Prague that, whenever possible, the Winter Olympics should be hosted by the same country as the Summer Olympics of the same year.
Los Angeles had previously been awarded the 1932 Summer Olympics in 1923. It was therefore expected that the 1932 Winter Olympics would also be held in the United States. The USOC approached Lake Placid in late 1927 as a potential host for the event, because the Lake Placid Club was the oldest operating year-round ski resort in the country and an established winter attraction for New Yorkers.Lund, Morten. "The First Four Winter Olympics: St. Moritz 1928–the hotel Olympics; Lake Placid 1932—Flirtation with Disaster", Skiing Heritage, International Skiing History Association, December 2001, pages 11–17. However, many local leaders believed that the area was not on par with the premier ski resorts of Europe. Winter sports were little known in America at the time; Sports Illustrated magazine later remarked that, while Lake Placid was then arguably the "winter sports capital of the U.S.", "in those days any place that put on one or more ice-and-snow events was automatically the winter-sports capital of the U.S."Bowen, Ezra. Hey—what Do You Say We Have An Olympics?, Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1962. Accessed October 29, 2011.
Godfrey Dewey, the vice president of the Lake Placid Club, took an interest in bidding for the Olympics. He had previously been described by the Lake Placid News as "an acknowledged authority on all matters pertaining to winter sports" and had recently overseen the construction of the village's first 60-meter ski jump."New Toboggan Slide Best Ever Built", Lake Placid News, December 30, 1927, front page. The secretary of the Lake Placid Club, Harry Wade Hicks, was also the president of the United States Eastern Amateur Ski Association at the time."Harry Wade Hicks", U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame. Retrieved November 19, 2025. Early in 1928, Hicks became president of the National Ski Association,"Harry Wade Hicks papers" finding aid, Adirondack Experience. Retrieved November 19, 2025. and shortly after taking the post, he discovered that no American skiers were expected to be sent to the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Hicks quickly raised money to send three skiers to St. Moritz and appointed Godfrey Dewey as their manager.
While visiting Europe for the Olympics, Dewey wanted to further investigate what Lake Placid would need to host a future Winter Olympics, so he studied the facilities in St. Moritz and extended his trip to visit Chamonix and other prominent Alpine winter resorts in France and Switzerland."How III Olympic Winter Games Were Awarded to Lake Placid", Official Report, III Olympic Winter Games, Lake Placid, 1932, pages 43–48, via the LA84 Foundation."Will Try to Get Next Olympics for Placid", Lake Placid News, January 13, 1928, front page. The European tour convinced Dewey that Lake Placid had the climate and terrain necessary to stage the Winter Olympics in 1932. Upon his return, he addressed the Lake Placid Kiwanis Club on March 21, 1928. There, he told the village that the only thing Lake Placid lacked was the accommodations necessary to house thousands of athletes, attendees, and spectators, and recommended that the community begin construction on such housing facilities at once. Two days later, he and a group of prominent businessmen and government leaders established an organizing committee to pursue the bid. Since Lake Placid was a small village, the organizers sought the support of local leaders all across the Adirondacks, and of the state of New York and Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, in funding and building new facilities for the Olympics.
Lake Placid's candidacy was one of seven American bids submitted to the IOC. The others were from Bear Mountain in New York, Denver in Colorado, Duluth and Minneapolis in Minnesota, and Lake Tahoe and Yosemite Valley in California. Among these various bids, historian E. John B. Allen has written that the "only serious contenders were California and Lake Placid." William May Garland, a Californian member of the IOC who was leading the organization of the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, advocated for the Winter Olympics to also be held in his state. Godfrey Dewey wrote to Garland in January 1929, saying that California had no established winter sports facilities and lacked the needed experience to host the Winter Olympics, and asked him to withdraw. Garland wrote back, "Let the best man win," and dispatched five Californians to represent the state's bid to the IOC. Several European IOC members believed that there were no winter sport venues capable of hosting the Winter Olympics in all of North America and wanted to send a special commission to investigate.Allen, E. John B. "The 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games: Dewey's Olympics", Olympic Perspectives, Centre for Olympic Studies, October 1996, pages 161–172.
The host city for the 1932 Winter Olympics was chosen at the 27th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 10, 1929. The session was originally scheduled to be held in Alexandria, Egypt, but was moved to IOC headquarters at the last minute. In addition to the seven American bids, there was also a bid from Montreal, Canada, and an offer by the Norwegian government to step in as an emergency host, but these were only to be considered in the event that all American bids were eliminated first. Lake Placid was unanimously chosen by the IOC. William F. Humphrey of the California Olympic Games Committee declared the decision "an outrage" and threatened to organize a competing winter sports event somewhere in California."Canada Had Support For Winter Olympics; General Feeling Montreal Most Desirable But U.S. Stood on Legal Rights", Toronto Star, April 11, 1929, page 12.
1948 The Olympics were cancelled during World War II, but after the war ended, the IOC quickly began preparations for the 1948 Winter Olympics as well as their summer counterpart. On August 29, 1945, two weeks after the surrender of Japan, while IOC delegates were meeting in London, Lake Placid telegraphed American delegate Avery Brundage to offer its candidacy for the Winter Games."Lake Placid Bids for Olympics", United Press International, via the Buffalo News, August 29, 1945, front page. The only other bid came from St. Moritz, Switzerland, which had hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928. The IOC preferred Switzerland over the United States as a host because it had been neutral in World War II, although the defeated Axis powers were excluded from the 1948 Winter Olympics.Forsyth, Janice. "St. Moritz 1948", Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Greenwood Press, 2004, page 315. St. Moritz was unanimously selected over Lake Placid in September 1946.
1952 Lake Placid quickly renewed its bid for the 1952 Winter Olympics. In connection with the Detroit bid for the 1952 Summer Olympics, another winter bid was promoted by the Upper Peninsula Winter Sports Committee, based in Escanaba, Michigan.Gunderman, Ken. "The Sports Parade", Escanaba Daily Press, October 10, 1946, page fourteen."Upper Michigan Submits Formal Bid For 1952 Winter Olympics", Escanaba Daily Press, May 8, 1947, page fourteen.
Neither Lake Placid nor Escanaba sent delegates to the 40th IOC Session in Stockholm, where the decision was to be made on June 21, 1947. Both cities instead asked Avery Brundage to present their bids at the meeting."Lake Placid Bids For Winter Olympics Games for 1952", Syracuse Post-Standard, June 15, 1947, page 15. Brundage acknowledged only the Lake Placid bid, saying that IOC members would be familiar with the town because it had hosted in 1932."Five U. S. Cities Seek '52 Games At Stockholm", New York Times Wire Service, via the Chicago Tribune, June 13, 1947, page 29. Lake Placid was the only American city that appeared on the IOC ballot, alongside Oslo, Norway, and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Lake Placid received only one vote, while Oslo was chosen on the first ballot.
1956 At the same IOC session where Oslo was chosen over Lake Placid for the 1952 Winter Olympics, five American cities unsuccessfully bid for the 1952 Summer Olympics, none of them receiving more than five votes. To prevent this from happening again, the USOC announced for the first time in July 1947 that it would nominate one city to put forward the American bid for each of the 1956 Games, Summer and Winter."U.S. Olympic Association Approves American Competition in '48 Games", Associated Press, via the Daily Breeze, July 28, 1947, front page. In a meeting in Chicago on July 10, 1948, the USOC endorsed Lake Placid as its preferred candidate for the 1956 Winter Olympics, without any apparent competition from other cities."Detroit Given 1956 Backing For Olympics", Associated Press, via the Saginaw News, July 11, 1948, page 28.
The host city for the 1956 Winter Olympics was selected at the 43rd IOC Session in Rome on April 28, 1949. Despite the USOC's endorsement of Lake Placid, Colorado governor William Lee Knous sent a telegram to Avery Brundage on April 22, inviting the IOC to consider a joint bid by Aspen and Colorado Springs."Colorado Bids For 1956 Winter Games", United Press International, via the Fresno Bee, April 22, 1949, page 24. This last-minute bid was accepted. On the first and only ballot, Lake Placid received one vote and came in last place, while Colorado Springs received two votes and Montreal seven. Cortina d'Ampezzo received 31 of the 41 votes cast and was chosen as the host."Choose Melbourne '56 Games Site; Australian City Winner by Vote", Associated Press, via the San Francisco Call Bulletin, April 28, 1949, page 24.
1960