The Winter Olympics are ‘finally’ coming back to Utah

Paris • Go ahead, throw on that old volunteer jacket, dust off the red beret and shine up those vintage pins.

The Winter Olympics will be in Utah once again.

“Finally,” said Fraser Bullock, the CEO and president of the Salt Lake City bid committee, “we’re back!”

On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee’s general assembly voted 83-6 to award the state the 2034 Games. It has long been considered an inevitability, given a public approval rating consistently measured near 80% and the plan to reuse all the facilities from the 2002 Games. However, the bid unexpectedly came under fire for actions the United States has taken in its independent investigation of a doping scandal surrounding China’s swimmers.

Until the final tally came in, local bid committee members were holding their breath

Then, they couldn’t hold back their tears.

“We no longer have to call it our ambition,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, a member of the local bid committee’s delegation, speaking after to a watch party at a restaurant in Paris filled with cowbells and Utah Olympic royalty. “It is our mission.”

Organizers, state and city officials, donors and select athletes like two-sport Paralympian Dani Aravich and decorated speedskater Apolo Ohno celebrated the selection inside the Palais des Congrès in Paris. At the same time, nearly 3,000 Utahns gathered at Washington Square in Salt Lake City erupted over the news. Their revelry, which took place in the pre-dawn hours of the Pioneer Day holiday, was livestreamed into the IOC session.

France didn’t draw that large of a crowd for the awarding of the 2030 Winter Games at a presentation within its own country, as Gov. Spencer Cox pointed out. Cox said that isn’t a slight against the French.

“We’re just weird in Utah,” he said, “in the best way possible.”

The selection of Utah was more controversial than expected, less because of flaws with Utah’s bid than concerns about U.S. overreach.

The U.S. has rejected the World Anti-Doping Agency’s acceptance of China’s explanation for why 23 of its swimmers tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug prior to the Tokyo Olympics. China has said the positive tests were the result of food contamination. The swimmers were allowed to compete, winning five Olympic medals, and the positive tests were not made public until earlier this year.

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an independent investigation into the doping tests.

To oblige the concerns — which were reiterated by various IOC members for nearly 45 minutes after Salt Lake City’s presentation concluded — local organizers have added language to their host contract recognizing WADA as the “supreme agency” in all doping matters.

“I was really nervous,” said gold-medal alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, the Salt Lake City committee’s chief of athlete experience. “You never know what’s going to happen until the vote’s actually done. And I know that everyone throughout the whole process has been so supportive of our bid. ...

“But that doesn’t mean that we’ll get the vote. And I think we all agree that clean sports is pinnacle in having the Olympics.”

Now that the Games are in hand, the first order of business will be for Gov. Spencer Cox to sign the government assurances required by the IOC. That is expected to take place with little fanfare Wednesday night prior to another celebration at the USA House in Paris. It’s more than a formality, however.

France has been unable to attain such assurances, and that nearly threw its bid for the 2030 Winter Games into disarray in a vote taken just prior to Salt Lake City’s presentation. The French government underwent an upheaval last month that left its prime minister without the authority to ensure the country will cover any budget overruns. Yet putting faith in a promise from President Emmanuel Macron that his country would get the Games delivery contract signed — even though Macron himself cannot sign it — the IOC voted 84-4 to issue an unprecedented conditional approval for the French Alps to host the 2030 Games.

France will have to present the contract by March 31, 2025.

The predicament results from a new system the IOC put in place in 2020 to encourage more hosts to bid on the Olympics and to discourage corruption. The IOC now keeps interested sites in the mix until it deems they are close to being ready to host, at which point it moves them into a “targeted dialogue.” Utah raised its hand as a candidate in 2019 and the IOC moved it to a targeted dialogue on Nov. 29, 2023.

Karl Stoss, the chair of the IOC’s Future Host Commission, noted the ability of officials from differing political parties to be able to come together for Utah’s bid.

“The governor of Utah is from another party than the mayor of Utah of Salt Lake City,” Stoss said. “As they have one goal: Bring back the Games to Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a clear mission between them all the time.”

Utah will be the third host elected under the new system, following Brisbane for the 2032 Summer Games and France’s 2030 bid. The state will also become just the fourth site to host multiple Winter Games, a group that also includes New York’s Lake Placid. The Salt Lake City-Utah Olympics, which are slated for Feb. 10-26 for the Olympics and March 10-19 for the Paralympics, will be the fifth Winter Games on American soil and 10th overall in the United States.

Organizers estimate Salt Lake City’s second Olympics will cost $4 billion, including $2.83 billion in operating costs. They have promised not to use any public money to fund the 2034 Games, however, and instead plan to rely on private donations, ticket and merchandise sales and licensing and IOC contributions. Some taxpayer money is expected to be spent on infrastructure, however, such as new and extended Trax lines and the creation of the sports and entertainment district in downtown Salt Lake City.

“Those are investments we would do anyway,” Gov. Spencer Cox said Tuesday at an event hosted by the U.S. ambassador to France. “We just want to do them in a way that helps us welcome the world here and that will ultimately benefit the growth that has already happened here.”

While the 2002 Games were meant to put Utah on the map, the 2034 ones will be focused on a grander concept: unity. Bullock said that was the driving force in the decision to pursue the world event a second time.

“The Games have more power than anything else to bring the world together, to bring the nation together and to bring communities together,” Bullock said Tuesday. “And that is going to be a recurring theme of everything we do over the next 10 years.”

The flame for the 2002 Olympics — an event deemed a rousing success — was officially doused on Feb. 24 of that year. Yet Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said she believes for most Utahns it never really went out. The 2034 Games, she said, will rekindle it.

“What we’re about to see ... is a spark of the new fire in Utah and Salt Lake City for the Olympic Movement,” she said Tuesday. “We’ve been keeping that fire burning since 2002, and we’re about to start a brand new one. I think it will undoubtedly sustain us for the next 10 years until we get to 2034.”