The city had been chosen to host the 1976 Winter Games at the 1970 International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Amsterdam.

Yet, little more than two years later, that decision was reversed after a public referendum.

Sports Illustrated magazine wrote that "public pressure and organisational ineptitude" had made it impossible for the Games to take place as originally planned and they were handed back.

Colorado had become the go-to destination for America's skiers in the post-war years.

In 1949, Colorado Springs had been a candidate for the 1956 Winter Olympics. 

The bid was unsuccessful but in 1950, Aspen had been the first non-European host of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) World Alpine Skiing Championships.

By the 1960s, Denver was making its Olympic ambitions clear, encouraged by incoming Colorado State Governor John Arthur Love.

In 1967, the city defeated Salt Lake City, Seattle and Lake Placid to win the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) nomination.

"Denver's Pledge," was then set out in glossy promotional material.

"The Denver Olympic Committee has studied reports of previous Games thoroughly and is prepared to stage the XII Winter Games equally well," it said.

"It is the conviction of the committee that Denver offers a capability and a metropolitan setting uniquely suited to the Olympic Games."

"It will be a singular honor (sic) for Colorado and America to have the 1976 Games in Colorado," Governor Love wrote.

"Denver's electric vigour and modernity and the power and majesty of the Colorado Rockies will provide an Olympic setting truly satisfying the ancient Greek standard of Kalos Kagathos, the beautiful and the good," a bid brochure promised.

It was claimed that 80 per cent of facilities "are constructed and ready" and that the entire Games would only cost $14 million (£12.2 million/€14.6 million) and that only a third would come from taxes. 

The 25 international skiing events held in the region since the 1950 World Championships were listed in bidding materials.

The University of Denver was proposed for the Athletes' Village with a promise to "provide every need as well as a level of comfort not obtained in past Olympic Games".

The city’s Coliseum was earmarked to hold ice hockey though an additional arena was also in plans.

The Denver Centre was expected to accommodate the IOC, National Olympic Committees and also international media.

A promotional film with aerial shots of mountains, slow motion film of skiers descending through powdered snow and a sweeping symphonic musical soundtrack extolled the virtues of the city.

"The Denver Olympic story starts in a land of Olympian proportions, the American West," it began.

"Massive, majestic, you can feel it all around you, the heroes, the villains, the hardship and the triumph.

"Colorado is called ski country USA for good reason."

The film insisted that the area had "a high degree of competence in staging, administering and judging winter sports events."

At the 1970 IOC session in Amsterdam, Denver saw off bids from Tampere in Finland and Canada's Vancouver-Garibaldi before defeating the Swiss resort of Sion by 39 votes to 30 in the final round.

"We will set an example to the youth of the world in staging a really amateur Winter Olympics at the lowest cost ever," Denver Mayor William McNichols promised.

The Opening Ceremony was scheduled for Friday February 20 1976 at the 50,000-capacity Denver Stadium.

Early bulletins produced by the Denver Olympic Organising Committee (DOC) exuded optimism.

These included colour pictures of visits by FIS President Marc Hodler and other prominent officials.

IOC director Monique Berlioux was interviewed by the Denver Post.

"Any time the Games are chosen there is always some anxiety that the Games won’t be staged properly," Berlioux told the paper.

"At Melbourne 1956, it wasn’t until seven months before the Games that everyone was convinced it would go well.

"It was the same for Grenoble, but now they are very happy the Olympics happened there."

Yet  problems were soon brewing as the DOC announced changes to a number of originally proposed sites.

Mount Sniktau had been listed for downhill skiing, this and the proposed slalom venue at Loveland basin were promoted as only 45 minutes from downtown Denver by "super highway".

It was claimed that these were "virtually assured of ample snow and sunny weather", but it was later rumoured that graphic artists had been told to airbrush snow on images of the peaks for the brochure to be presented to Olympic officials. 

Nordic events were proposed for Evergreen in the Denver Mountain Park only 20 minutes from the city.

The park was also supposed to stage bobsled and luge.

Concern grew about the impact this would have on the environment and a protest group called Protectors of our Mountain Environment (POME) demanded events be moved elsewhere.

Protests grew as a party from Denver flew to Japan to present a progress report to the IOC Session before the Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympics.

At the IOC Executive Board before the full session, "three representatives of a group, protesting about the staging of the 1976 Winter Games in Denver, were shown into the meeting."

Led by Estelle Brown from Citizens of Colorado’s Future, they presented a petition of opposition signed by 25,000.

They outlined their opposition to "the population explosion in Colorado after the publicity of the Games, the amount of tax-payers money needed to build the venues and conservation of the mountain regions."

Given what happened later in the year it was perhaps prophetic Denver did not receive the ceremonial Olympic handover flag in 1972, but this was because those days, host cities retained the Flag for four years after staging the Games so it was 1968 host Grenoble which passed the flag on to Sapporo. 

The DOC did take home a bag of letters from Japanese children at the Wako-o elementary school, destined for youngsters back in Denver.

Yet as the year wore on, newspaper clippings arriving at IOC headquarters in Lausanne revealed increasing discontent in Colorado.

"There was a chasm between the proposed plans and the on-the-ground realities," Sports Illustrated magazine said later.

The boast of rapid journeys to venues was very soon made redundant by proposals to hold the Alpine skiing at Vail and the Nordic events at Steamboat springs, some 252 kilometres from Denver.

The Organising Committee also proposed holding sliding events at Lake Placid, almost 3000 kilometres away.

In May, the IOC Executive Board was given a further DOC update.

"The first two years have not been without frustration and problems but equally these years have not been void of accomplishments."

The Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne has a large file on the Denver 1976 Games. 

It includes a of box letters written to IOC President Avery Brundage and other members by concerned citizens from Colorado.

"We do recognise that members of the International Olympic Committee have received written objections to the staging of the 1976 Games by Denver," the DOC said.

"We hope you do not accept these expressions as representative of the conviction of the more than two and a quarter million residents of Denver and Colorado." 

Newspaper polls were showing a very different picture and eventually, Richard Lamm, a member of the Colorado General Assembly and a future governor, spearheaded calls for a vote to decide.

A full page advertisement reading "the Colorado Committee of 76 for the spirit of 76" attempted to rally support appeared in newspapers.

"This we believe, we believe in Colorado, we believe in the people of Colorado," it continued.

"We believe that the Winter Olympics held in Colorado in 1976 will give our state the worldwide prideful attention it deserves and which may not be possible within any of our lifetimes."

It reaffirmed that the Olympics could take place with "sound economics".

"We believe the people of Colorado want to join us in saying, let's talk about Do instead of Doom."

In the first week of November 1972, voters went to the polls.

Proposition number eight on the voting paper called for a change in the state constitution "to prohibit the state from levying taxes and appropriating or loaning funds for the purpose of aiding or furthering the 1976 Winter Olympic Games."

Counter intuitively, a yes vote would mean that the Games were to be taken away.

A total of 537,440 voted yes, effectively rejecting the Olympics while 358,906 had voted against the proposal.

The IOC were not officially informed until almost a week later.

This was because Olympic supporters had obtained a legal injunction to prevent an official communique to the IOC "in the hope that they could find a solution to the problem."

When the court order was eventually lifted, DOC President Carl De Temple sent a telegram message to Lausanne.

"Am now permitted to convey fact that voters approved amendment prohibiting expenditure of state and city funds for 1976 Olympic Winter Games," the message began.

 "As a result DOC has determined that it has no choice but to withdraw invitation to hold Games in Denver."

"It’s a tragedy for the state and a tragedy for the nation that the people of Colorado were not aware of the great honour to host the 1976 Olympic Games," USOC President Clifford Buck said.

The official USOC Report spoke of "darkest gloom" after the referendum, which it claimed had been over a "minimal income tax" on the citizens of Colorado.

The IOC now considered applications from Tampere, Lake Placid and Mont Blanc in France before reassigning the Games.

They chose the Austrian city of Innsbruck, which had already hosted the 1964 Winter Olympics.

The Games duly took place and proved a great success.