Fanfare for USOC in Salt Lake City

(ATR) Officials from the United States Olympic Committee were greeted with a luncheon, a venue tour, and a visit to a special joint legislative session in Salt Lake City during a site visit.

The USOC visited Salt Lake City yesterday its second straight day of tours for a potential future Winter Olympics host city. Officials left Denver on Nov. 13, after it was announced that Reno-Tahoe would withdraw from the process.

"During the USOC visits to Denver and Salt Lake, we saw two great cities and mountain communities that are thriving winter sport cities," Patrick Sandusky, USOC chief external affairs officer, said in a statement to Around the Rings. "Both Denver and Salt Lake showed that U.S. cities are not only excited but capable of hosting a future Winter Olympic Games, whenever that may be."

A future Winter Olympics bid city, likely for the 2030 Olympics, will be selected at the USOC board of directors meeting next month.

USOC Chief Executive Sarah Hirshland said legacy from the 2002 Winter Olympics "in this community, is palpable," according to local media reports. Throughout the day multiple outlets in Salt Lake City were invited to parts of the tour the five-person USOC team went on.

Hirshland was joined by outgoing USOC chairman Larry Probst, incoming board chair Suzanne Lyons, Sandusky, and USOC chief bid officer Christopher Sullivan.

Sullivan had led the effort to brief the USOC board about the 2026, and potential 2030, bid processes earlier this year, leading to the accelerated timeline to select a bid.

Joining the USOC officials throughout parts of the day were Salt Lake City mayor Jackie Biskupski, Idaho Governor Gary Herbert, and 2002 Olympics chief operating officer Fraser Bullock.

"It's fantastic when everybody sees the venues and particularly the stories of athlete development, how children are learning how to skate and then progressing so that now they're training to become Olympians," Bullock said to the Deseret News. "It's a fabulous legacy.

"They're going to bid again. The question is timing, whether it is 2030 or 2034, they have every intention of bidding again."

The University of Utah hosted a luncheon for the USOC and local leaders in the middle of a day full of stops to inspect venues. Salt Lake City is uniquely positioned among American cities given it has an internationally certified sliding center nearby.

"Legacy matters," Biskupski said according to the Salt Lake Tribune. "We didn’t just build venues and then walk away. We take nothing for granted. We’re making sure as we tell our story. Our entire state is the Olympic family. We just are."

Hirshland was given a standing ovation by the Utah joint legislative session, a signal from Utah representatives that the state was serious about getting behind a future bid.

"Everyone we have met today…every one of them has said to us, 'We're ready, we're willing, we're able. Let us prove it,'" Hirshland said to the session. "So, I will stand here and take only a minute of your time to say, 'You're piling on.’"

Less Coverage in Denver

Meanwhile, Denver hosted officials for a day of meetings and tours that received much less coverage from the media.

"The USOC is working to identify a host partner for a future Winter Games in 2030 or beyond, and we met with USOC members in Denver today as part of a site visit," Rob Cohen, the head of the Denver exploratory committee said in a statement following the visit.

"The meeting gave us an opportunity to share our vision for how we could host a world-class, privately funded Winter Games in our state, as well as to share comprehensive operational and financial details that were included in the Denver and Colorado Olympic and Paralympic Exploratory Committee Final Report released this past summer."

That report showed that Denver believes it can host an Olympics at a cost of $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion depending on the number of temporary facilities it has to build. Notably, the report says that Denver would build a temporary sliding track instead of using the existing one in Utah.

Denver’s candidacy will not continue if it does not pass the muster of local voters. A condition set out by the exploratory committee was a vote for 2020, but a local group is working to put the question to the ballot in 2019 given the accelerated timeline.

The USOC reportedly met with outgoing Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, according to the Denver Post. Local officials did not immediately comment about the visit to the Post, in stark contrast from the open affair in Salt Lake City.

Outside of a bid city, the USOC must also clarify which year this "future Olympic bid" will be for. Conventional wisdom dictates the bid would be for 2030, given the USOC has written to the IOC asking for all information regarding that bid race.

However, Reno-Tahoe dropped out of the 2030 race given marketing constraints from the joint marketing agreement between the USOC and LA 2028. Los Angeles has exclusive Olympic marketing rights through 2028, so any 2030 host city would have to push the USOC to renegotiate the deal or work with a shortened timeline to raise sponsorship funds.

The fact remains that the USOC would be choosing a Winter Olympic bid city six months before the IOC chooses its 2026 host. On that front, only two cities remain after Calgary dropped out of the race following a negative referendum. Both Stockholm and Milan/Cortina remain, but each faces challenges of government support and financing.

If the bid race totally collapses, Salt Lake City government officials say they are ready to let the IOC know they are an option in that scenario.

"We've always known there's a remote possibility and it's probably still remote, but we're ready, willing and able if that opportunity does present itself," Wayne Niederhauser, outgoing Utah State Senate President said to the Deseret News.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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