The 1968 Winter Olympics, officially known as the X Olympic Winter Games (French: Les Xes Jeux olympiques d'hiver), were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1968 in Grenoble, France, and opened on 6 February. Thirty-seven countries participated.

Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy won three gold medals in all the alpine skiing events. In women's figure skating, Peggy Fleming won the only United States gold medal. The games have been credited with making the Winter Olympics more popular in the United States, not least of which because of ABC's extensive coverage of Fleming and Killy, who became overnight sensations among teenage girls.

The year 1968 marked the first time the IOC first permitted East and West Germany to enter separately, and the first time the IOC ever ordered drug and gender testing of competitors.On 24 November 1960 the prefect of the Isère Département, François Raoul, and the president of the Dauphiné Ski Federation, Raoul Arduin, officially presented for the first time the idea of hosting the 1968 Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble. After the city council agreed in principle, different government agencies offered their support, and the villages around Grenoble also reacted positively, an application committee was formed and led by Albert Michallon, the former mayor of Grenoble on 30 December 1960. The application was officially given to the IOC during a meeting between IOC executives and representatives of international sport agencies in Lausanne in February 1963.

hide1968 Winter Olympics bidding results
City	Country	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3
Grenoble	France	15	18	27
Calgary	Canada	12	19	24
Lahti	Finland	11	14	—
Sapporo	Japan	6	—	—
Oslo	Norway	4	—	—
Lake Placid	United States	3	—	—

In the application the decision was not solely based on sport because in the Isère Département there had only been two important sport events, the Bobsleigh World Championships of 1951 in L'Alpe d'Huez and the Luge World Championships of 1959 in Villard-de-Lans. Between 1946 and 1962 the number of inhabitants in Grenoble increased from 102,000 to 159,000, and the total inhabitants in the Département Isère increased from 139,000 to 250,000. The development of the infrastructure could not keep up with this rapid increase and was for the most part at the same level as before the Second World War. The people who were responsible never made a secret out of it that it was mainly for them about using the Olympic Games to receive larger grants to quickly develop dated infrastructure and support the local economy.

The 61st IOC session, where the awarding of the Olympic Games should have been voted for, should have taken place in Nairobi. This session was moved to Baden-Baden because Kenya refused entry to IOC members from Portugal and South Africa for political reasons. Due to a lack of time only the Summer Games of 1968 could be voted for. The vote finally took place in Innsbruck on 28 January 1964, one day before the start of the 1964 Winter Olympic Games. 51 members who were eligible to vote were in attendance and Grenoble were awarded the games after the third round of voting and were competing against Calgary, who were awarded the Games 20 years later.After Grenoble was voted as the host city the French National Olympic Sports Committee decided the foundation of the organisation committee. The Comité d'Organisation des dixièmes Jeux Olympiques (COJO), the committee for the organisation of the 10th Olympic Games, started to plan the games for the first time on 1 August 1964. Albert Michallon, alongside being the former mayor of Grenoble, was also president of COJO. The upper panel was made up of the general assembly with its 340 members and the supervisory board conduct business with 39 members, 19 of which were appointed and the other 20 were voted for. The general secretary consisted of five main departments and 17 subordinate departments. The number of employees grew to 1920 in February 1968.

The French government played a major role in the preparations for the Games because president Charles de Gaulle saw an opportunity in the Winter Olympic Games to present Grenoble as a symbol for a modern France. Minister for Youth and Sport Francois Missoffe formed an interministerial committee for the coordination of the work commissioned by prime minister Georges Pompidou. Just over 7000 soldiers of the French armed forces and also employees of the ministries for Youth and Sport, Finance, Social Building, Education, Post, Culture and Transport were employed. The sum of the investments contributed to 1.1 billion Francs (roughly 775 million pounds). The government contributed 47.08%, the Isere Department 3.65%, the city of Grenoble 20.07% and the surrounding communities 1.37%. Different institutions, such as the train company SNCF; the television broadcaster ORTF; the government housing association and the regional association of hospitals provided the rest of the money.

These means were used accordingly - 465.181 million Francs for the infrastructure of transport and communications, 250.876 million for the olympic village and press area, 92.517 million for the sports arenas, 57.502 million for television and radio, 45.674 million for culture, 95.116 million for the city's infrastructure and 90.429 million for the running of COJO. They built a new airport, two motorway sections of 7.5 miles and 15 miles, a switchboard, a new town hall, a new police station, a fire station, a hospital with 560 beds, a congress and exhibition centre and a culture palace. They upgraded the access road to the outer sport arenas, an orbital road round Grenoble as well as relocating the rail tracks and removing the level crossings and building a completely new main train station.

To test the new sport complex and to improve organisational processes they organized "International Sports Weeks". From 20 January to 19 February 1967 speed skating competitions and ski races took place, from 12 to 15 October 1967 an ice hockey tournament and from 23 to 25 November a figure-skating competition.