Overview

The “International Expo of Sport Turin 1955” was held in Turin, Italy, from May 25 to June 19, 1955. A special exhibition under the 1928 Convention, it was organized by a special organizing committee for the International Sports Exhibition. Its theme was sport, and it welcomed 11 participants and 120,000 visits over less than four weeks.

Pavilions and international participation

Turin's municipal magazine described the event, conceived by a committee in the city, as an original undertaking with no precedent of its kind. National Olympic committees from 10 countries took part, and the Italian minister for sport and tourism attended the opening on May 25.

The exhibition filled three halls. The entrance hall held a Sports Gallery of historic objects, among them the Itala automobile from the Peking to Paris race and a tent used on the expedition to K2, and the Salone Agnelli housed some 250 stands set up by ministries, provinces and municipalities. Other displays included sailing models prepared for the upcoming Olympic Games in Melbourne, the yacht Merope associated with the sailors Straulino and Rode, a Fairchild light aircraft and racing cars old and new. Expo 1955 Turin presented sport, from mountaineering to motor racing, as a subject worthy of an international exhibition.