What Montreal's 1976 Olympics left behind, 50 years later

As today marks the beginning of the 2026 Winter Olympics (officially the XXV Winter Olympic Games and more commonly known as Milano Cortina 2026), we wanted to take a look back on the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal—a highly notable and controversial time for the multi-sport event—50 years later.

In the summer of 1976, Montreal found itself at the centre of the world. Nine years after Expo 67 rebranded the city as confident, modern, and outward-looking, the Olympics promised a second act for the city as host to an event of global scale and symbolic weight.

What followed was messier, louder, and far more complicated turning point both for the city and how the Olympic Games themselves would be staged, secured, and remembered in the decades to come.